Jacksonville Bill to Hike Stripping Age to 18, Require ID Cards

A new ordinance in Florida’s most populous city would make it more difficult for young women to work as strippers by raising the legal age for “nude erotic dancing at establishments serving alcohol” from 18 to 21. The ordinance, expected to be signed into law on Thursday by Jacksonville, Florida, Mayor Lenny Curry, also requires performers to obtain “work identification cards.” The cards would not be issued to any applicant under 21 years of age, and strippers will not be permitted to work without the ID card — which requires that each dancer be fingerprinted and photographed.  In California, a similar bill, AB2389, has been introduced in the state legislature. But last week the bill’s authors amended the proposed legislation to remove requirements that adult performers—including not only strippers but on-camera porn performers as well—be subjected to fingerprinting. The amended bill also drops the requirement that performers obtain a license to work in the adult industry—but it retains the requirement that adult entertainment performers undergo a “training” course once every two years. The Jacksonville ordinance has been presented as an element of the city’s “crackdown on sex trafficking,” according to a report by the Florida Times-Union newspaper.  The new law’s co-author, City Council Member LeAnna Cumber, said the new age and identification requirements for strippers “will significantly impact people in our community who are at their most vulnerable,” as quoted by the Times-Union. Most cities in Florida already require registration for strippers, but only Orlando has previously raised the legal age to work as a stripper from 18 to 21.  There are reportedly 22 strip clubs in Jacksonville, a city of about 890,000. But Cumber said that the goal of the new ordinance—which raises the club’s license fees to cover costs of issuing the new worker ID cards—is not to put those adult establishments out of business, according to the Florida Politics site. Clubs will, however, be required to keep lists of legally registered performers, and must keep copies of the strippers’ ID cards on file. Photo by Gogirl18 / Wikimedia Commons