The VIP Club won big before the New York State Court of Appeals May 4, with the court holding it is not an "adult establishment" as defined by New York City's anti-adult business zoning law.
The unanimous court ruling was considered critical to whether the club could stay where it is now, or whether it would have to move from its West 20th Street location, according to published reports. The VIP argued successfully that its topless dancing was featured only in a mezzanine area amounting to less than 36 percent of its floor space.
New York City argued any sex-related activities at that club or others, or at X-rated theaters, brings them under the zoning law, which consigns sex-related businesses to industrial zones away from areas considered tourist zones as well as residential areas.
But the VIP argued it should have been considered under the same descriptions as adult bookstores - in other words, if forty percent of its floor space or more were for sex-oriented items or business.
The Court of Appeals decision upheld two rulings from lower courts on that subject which sided with the VIP.
