Nashville bar covers up exposed nipples
NASHVILLE (AP) — The state of Tennessee doesn’t allow booze to be sold in places that have naked women, or apparently even pictures of 19th-century naked women.
Regulators warned The Sutler, a Nashville pub, that its antique photos of nude Victorian women on the walls and menus might break state law.
Not wanting to incur the wrath of the state, the bar used a black marker to cover all exposed nipples in the old photographs.
Only later did the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission decide most of the photos were OK.
The pub has displayed the artistic antique photos for many years and had never attracted notice of state regulators until recently.
Commission agents told the pub owner that some of the photos, thought to be from the mid-1800s, might run afoul of state laws that limit sexually explicit material or performances where alcohol is served.
The law, which is meant to deal with strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses, doesn’t allow nude wait staffs or any displays of sexual intercourse. It also bans “scenes wherein artificial devices or inanimate objects are employed to depict, or drawings employed to portray, any of the prohibited activities.”
The Alcoholic Beverage Commission said it evaluated the antique photos and tried to make sure the state law was being followed. In the end, it decided all the photos, except for one that showed the genital area of a woman, were OK.
But that was after the bar had already taken a marker to its menus.
The owner of The Sutler, Johnny Potts, said he did not want to talk about the issue.
“The underlying issue is whether the pictures violate the statute,” said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission. “It is a very broad statute.”
Elks said the problem arose when agents stopped by The Sutler on a normal visit.
“When the agents saw the picture, they did express some concern,” she said.
But Elks said much of what followed the visit by the agents was a misunderstanding, including a perception by The Sutler that the menus needed to be blacked out.
“The establishment has not been cited,” Elks said. “It was never the intent of the agency to cite them, and the agency did not threaten them.”