No More Underboob for Vietnamese Cafes

Unfortunately for Garden Grove, CA residents, no longer can they enjoy their iced coffee served by nearly naked women. The Vietnamese “lingerie cafes” in Garden Grove, CA have been under fire recently for their scantily-clad waitresses, but now they will face new restrictions on just how far those waitresses can go. The new ordinance, put into effect last Friday, demanded that the women at the 37 cafes dress positively modestly: they were told to “cover up butt cracks, pubic regions, and breasts from the ‘top of the areola down.'” In addition, the ordinance banned smoking, arcade games, and tinted windows at the establishments themselves.

Some of the rules were created in response to alleged gang activity in the cafes.  But I’m now sure how (almost) naked women are tied to this. I’m all for creating safer communities, but this ordinance seems to lump a bunch of different things together. Moye alluded to this, but this law specifically refers to an ethnic community. Similarly racial ordinances were enacted in San Francisco against the newly-immigrated Chinese… and were found to be a violation of the 14th Amendment. The early Chinese had their laundries, and now the Vietnamese have their cafes.

Am I going to make a big issue about rights here? Maybe, with the right research. Right now, the fact that only the cafes are affected kind of rankles me. However, without reading the text of the ordinance I don’t want to start pointing angry “CALIFORNIA IS A RACIST STATE” fingers. It is worth noting, though, that there are strip clubs nearby.

At the same time, I am happy to see that there will be a limit to how much the waitresses will be able to expose. One angry commenter might be ranting, “but it’s their own choice! It’s freedom of speech!” Yes, but the women get paid more depending on how little they wear. If they had a real choice above making enough money to feed themselves, maybe they would dress the same. Or maybe they wouldn’t. The point is, limiting how much these women can bare will hopefully shift the pay scale so that covering up more also pays more. (This assumes, though, that the cafes themselves won’t find other degrading ways for the women to make up the same amount of pay).

So here’s to the loss of boobage, hopefully in return for a little more dignity for the waitresses at these cafes.

[Photo courtesy of OC Register]

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