The end of the road for this particular bit of litigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up the adult entertainment industry’s lawsuit against the state’s $5-per-patron strip club tax, justices decided Monday.
“Texas is now one step closer to a sustainable source of funding for rape crisis centers, and most importantly, for supporting sexual assault survivors in their recovery,” said Annette Burrhus Clay, executive director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.
That means the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling — that the fee does not violate the First Amendment — stands. But it doesn’t mean that the industry, years into its legal battle, can’t file yet another suit against other elements of the tax.
The story doesn’t go into what other grounds there may be for litigation, and I don’t care to think about it at this time. Here’s a reminder of the timeline in this case, which first got a ruling from a district court judge in 2008. As I recall, it took about a decade for all the lawsuits over the city of Houston’s SOB ordinance to be resolved. Check back in 2018 or so, I guess.