Going to the strip club in NC? Lawmakers propose a $10 door fee
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawmakers propose $10 cover charge for strip club patrons.
- Funds would go to the Sexual Assault and Rape Crisis Center Fund used by the NC Council.
- Critics said the bill raises First Amendment and legal scrutiny over constitutionality.
People eager to spend money at strip clubs in North Carolina could soon have to pay more than they may have hoped.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would charge strip club customers an additional $10 at the door. The funds would be distributed to the Sexual Assault and Rape Crisis Center Fund to be used by the North Carolina Council for Women.
The fee would only apply to “sexually oriented businesses” that sell alcohol.
Rep. Dennis Riddell, an Alamance County Republican, is a co-sponsor of the bill and introduced it in a committee meeting on Tuesday. He said the fee is going toward “some of the domestic violence programs and child abuse programs that we have that always seem to have trouble getting funding.”
“What we’re looking at trying to do is again provide a money source for people who are victims of what sometimes can be the secondary causes and consequences of these types of institutions,” Riddell said.
Critics of the bill brought up First Amendment concerns and the potential for the legislation to be viewed an attempt to regulate content or ideas, which is unconstitutional.
Nude dancing is somewhat constitutionally protected because it’s classified as “expressive conduct,” according to a legislative analyst Ike McRee.
Riddell said the bill deals “with the secondary impacts. We’re not talking about content as protected speech under the Constitution currently.”
Bill specifics
The bill would impose the $10 fee on patrons of strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses in addition to any other fees imposed by the institution.
The bill states that the General Assembly “finds that sexually oriented businesses that combine nudity with the aggravating factor of alcohol can and do cause secondary harmful effects on the public’s health, safety, and welfare.”
Businesses would have to transmit the money on a quarterly basis, as well as totals of how many people are admitted. The records would not hold names or personal information for any customers, according to the bill.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, said in Tuesday’s committee that while she understands “the good intentions” of the bill, she doesn’t see the connection “between those individuals who frequent these establishments” and paying for domestic violence programs.
She said the fee would “pay for services that we should be providing as a government.”
First Amendment concerns
Harrison also mentioned that content laws require strict scrutiny — which is the highest level of judicial review — and that the state could be subject to lawsuits “the way this is drafted.”
Liz Barber, the director of policy and advocacy of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, agreed with Harrison. Barber said regulating where strip clubs can operate was found to be constitutional, as decided by 1986’s City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., because of “the real effects” of a business operating near a preschool or other establishment.
“Here, this is different because they’re trying to regulate the same sort of establishments and trying to get money from them,” she said.
Riddell said that content is “not being touched.”
“What there is a judgment of is, can the government get more money for some of these groups that are part of the victim class?” he said.
McRee said the particular language of the bill was based on Texas law. The Texas Supreme Court in 2011 ruled that a $5 fee collected from each customer at a business offering live nude entertainment and alcohol consumption “was not content-based and did not require strict scrutiny analysis as to a First Amendment matter,” he said.
McRee said the law “was rather deemed to be directed at secondary effects of nude dancing when alcohol was being consumed.”
Harrison said she was not going to get into a constitutional argument, but that the Texas Supreme Court “is very different.”
The bill was moved to the House’s Finance Committee.
This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 3:44 PM with the headline "Going to the strip club in NC? Lawmakers propose a $10 door fee."
