By PAUL THOMPSON
A city in Texas has been forced to change its nudity laws after topless waitresses wearing just body paint served customers. Staff at the Red Neck Heaven Bar in Lewisville have been told they are no longer allowed to wear just body paint and strategically placed pasties covering their modesty. Until recently the girls at the restaurant would hold ABC days - anything but clothes. The all female staff would wear bikini bottoms and cover their breasts with body paint that had been professionally applied by an artist. Cloth pasties would cover their nipples. Under ordinance laws in Lewisville, Texas, the risqué attire was perfectly legal. Despite the servers being near naked, police said they were not in breach of any law.
But the city's police chief Russell Kerbow said the laws regarding nudity should be re-examined. But following complaints about the topless servers, city chiefs have now ruled body paint and pasties are unacceptable. It follows a complaint by local resident Catherine Holliday. She was with a friend who wanted to stop and take a photo of the restaurant's sign. 'And that’s when we realized there were servers in the parking lot that weren’t dressed!' she told CBS News. 'They weren’t for all intensive purposes. They had a tiny bikini bottom that didn’t cover their bottom, their backs were bare and their fronts were painted but bare.' City chiefs debated the issue on Monday night and heard from professional body painter Kristal White.
She said:'I do consider it a form of art — I consider it a very beautiful form of art. 'If you’ve seen X-Men, you’ve seen Mystique. That was a movie and that was body painting, and it was beautiful.' Lewisville town chiefs decided body paint, dyes and tattoos cannot be considered decent covering for restaurant servers and voted to change their ordinance. The Red Neck Heaven restaurant will have to apply for a Sexually Oriented Business permit if the want to continue to hold their anything but clothes day.
A spokesman for the restaurant was unavailable for comment.
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