What Can’t You Do in a WeHo Bar? (At Least According to ABC Law)

You can drink. In many places you can dance. You can even make out with your boyfriend or girlfriend or that equally inebriated sexy stranger who’s been staring at you all night from across the bar.

But there are some things the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control says you can’t do in any place that serves alcohol. The regulations, some 43 years old, need review according to Genevieve Morrill, president of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who notes that some of them don’t reflect the change in mores over the past four decades. Here’s a sampling:

No touchy feely! You can’t “touch, caress or fondle the breasts, buttocks, anus or genitals of any other person.” Breasts includes a guy’s chest as well as a girl’s.

No pretending! You can’t “wear or use any device or covering, exposed to view, which simulates the breast, genitals, anus, pubic hair or any portion thereof.” Take that into account when you’re planning for Halloween next year!

No whips! And if you’re hoping to win the top prize in the City of West Hollywood’s annual Go Go Appreciation Day contest, remember that your career can be cut short if you even pretend to engage in “sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation or flagellation or let anyone see your pubic hair, your anus or your vulva.”

No tips? ABC regulations also specify that entertainers whose breasts and/or buttocks are exposed to view (the very definition of a go go boy or girl) “shall perform only upon a stage at least 18 inches above the immediate floor level and removed at least six feet from the nearest patron.” That makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a guy to slip that dollar bill in to show his appreciation for a dance well done.

If you’re the owner of a bar, it’s your job to enforce those rules. You also have to make sure that no one who works for you “is unclothed or in such attire, costume or clothing as to expose to view any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola or of any portion of the pubic hair, anus, cleft of the buttocks, vulva or genitals.”