After the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) and Joint Enforcement Team (JET) visited the Cuff Complex and the Eagle in January — called "raids" by bar owners on social media and by community members — the LCB released a letter announcing a pause of its lewd-conduct enforcement and involvement with JET. The letter also included the possibility of reviewing WAC 314.11.050, the regulation that gave the drop-ins ground to stand on in the first place.
Since then, it was repealed by Washington State Legislature, which will take effect on June 6.
The lewd-conduct regulation, passed in 2001, prohibited establishments with a liquor license from allowing clothing that exposed "any portion of the breast below the top of the areola or of any portion of the pubic hair, anus, cleft of the buttocks, vulva, or genitals." This means that before it was repealed, citations could be issued to Queer bars if anyone was wearing jockstraps or had exposed nipples.
In the letter mentioned above, the LCB detailed its decision not to issue citations from that particular weekend. Citations of a similar nature, however, are not new and are not reserved to the events this January. They have been around for a long time and had repercussions prior to this year. The Stranger reported that the Cuff Complex had been cited during Pride 2022 for a customer wearing a jockstrap, which led to jockstraps being banned at the club.
The decision to repeal WAC 314.11.050 came alongside what's been called the Strippers' Bill of Rights, which focuses almost entirely on labor protections for entertainers. It addresses mandatory training on dancers' rights, workplace injuries, the risk of human trafficking, financial aspects of the job, needed resources, accessible panic buttons in areas where the worker might be alone with a customer, and limits on fees that clubs charge dancers. According to reporting by The Stranger, it also allows strip clubs to sell alcohol.
After the LCB letter was published, the Cuff Complex posted colorful copies of it over its front entrance. The new decorations were accompanied by an Instagram post with the caption "We have power when we come together to fight back. We have power when we come together to celebrate. We have papered the front of the Cuff with the LCB's letter as a reminder of these things... and as a reminder to any 'enforcement' before they enter our community space that hole patrol badges have expired."
For now, the sheets have come down, and Capitol Hill's Queer establishments have secured a solution to a longtime problem.