After drive-up coffee shacks featuring scantly clad baristas became popular in one town, the city council decided to do something about it, passing a dress code. That’s when a band of bikini baristas decided to file a lawsuit.
When Everett, Washington, a sleepy burg about 25 miles outside of Seattle, became home to several coffee shacks employing bikini baristas, not everyone was happy about it. The prospect of getting an eyeful of “jugs” while ordering up some java wasn’t something everyone supported, so the city council passed a dress code in the hopes of cracking down on these establishments, but things didn’t go as planned.
After passing a pair of ordinances, Everett banned skimpy clothing at all quick-service food and drink venues such as the “Hillbilly Hotties” espresso stand. One of the ordinances prohibited employees at these “quick service” restaurants from exposing their midriffs, breasts, and the top three inches of their legs. The other defined a new crime of facilitating lewd conduct.
According to the city council, the rules were adopted because the tiny outfits worn by the “bikini baristas” provided “the opportunity for scantily clad baristas to easily engage in sexual conduct with customers,” Maxim reported. Of course, Hillbilly Hotties and their baristas didn’t agree.
After the city prohibited some vendors from showing certain parts of their bodies while performing their jobs and tied the regulation to the potential exploitation of women and “adverse impacts on minors,” a group of bikini baristas decided to sue, according to Legal Scoops. The baristas alleged that their First Amendment right to free expression was being infringed upon, which was the basis for their lawsuit.
“This is about women’s rights. The city council should not tell me what I can and cannot wear when I go to work, it’s a violation of my First Amendment rights,” said barista Natalie Bjerke at the time, according to The Blaze.
“It’s our bodies and it’s our choice,” said Emilija Powell, an employee at the Everett bikini barista chain “Hillbilly Hotties,” Reason reported. Many seemed to agree that law enforcement had more important fish to fry in Everett and that the city should be more concerned about drugs and its homeless crisis than baristas in bikinis.
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