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City Battles Topless Bar Near Goose Island

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The City of Chicago is continuing its near-20-year battle to shutdown a Goose Island area topless bar.

As WBBM Newsradio 780's Bernie Tafoya reports, the city and VIP's: A Gentlemen's Club, 1543 N. Kingsbury St., have been at odds for several years. The topless bar has lost round after round in court, with an occasional lower court ruling in its favor, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780's Bernie Tafoya reports

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City ordinance forbids any establishment that serves liquor from allowing anyone to expose their "genitals, pubic region, buttock, (or) female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola."

The city says VIP's violates this rule, but VIP's owner Perry Mandera says its dancers are covered enough to comply. The club also says the rule forbidding partial nudity and alcohol is unconstitutional, the Sun-Times reported.

Mandera also points out he employs nearly 200 people and pays hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes, the newspaper reported.

Mandera says he would like to find out if there is any way Mayor Rahm Emanuel would see fit to legalize the club, the Sun-Times reported.

Strip clubs do operate legally within the Chicago city limits. But the most famous ones, such as the Admiral Theatre at 3940 W. Lawrence Ave., comply with the law by not serving liquor.

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