EVERETT — The City Council authorized a $500,000 payout to settle a long-drawn-out federal lawsuit over the city’s “bikini barista” rulebook.
The city set rules in 2017 about all “quick service facilities” — from taco trucks to Starbucks — as its answer to stamp out sexual acts being offered at some drive-thru coffee stands.
It came with an exacting dress code that banned showing a lot of chest cleavage, bare stomachs, and bare butts and carried penalties that fell on the business owner.
Bikini baristas said the rules unfairly targeted how they dress, instead of focusing on whether any illegal acts take place at their stand.
For the settlement, the city is agreeing to amend its rules to have the part about minimum dress codes match its minimum requirements in the city’s lewd conduct ordinance, deputy city attorney Ramsey Ramerman said.
The city isn’t losing its ability to enforce conduct, where it can revoke a city business license on a three-strikes-you’re-out basis.
A group of bikini baristas and Jovanna Edge, the owner of the coffee stand chain Hillbilly Hotties, filed the lawsuit in 2017. Edge had no comment for the Tribune.
Settling the lawsuit for $500,000 is cheaper than keeping up the fight by filing an appeal to defend the dress code, Ramerman outlined to council last week. The city said the baristas sought $3.3 million in damages and fees.
In October, a federal judge upheld most of the city’s law as legal but ruled the dress code is gender-discriminatory because it limits women much more than men by having language about minimum breast coverings and bans on pasties.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez ruled the gender difference is unconstitutional, writing that having a dress code doesn’t demonstrate how it meets the city’s objective to prevent sex acts at coffee stands.
The lawsuit lasted longer than how long the law has been in effect. Four months after council approved it, a court injunction suspended the law for many months. The city got the injunction vacated in 2019 by a judicial appeals board. The latest step was an October 2022 summary judgment against parts of the city’s ordinance.
The city told KIRO-TV last fall it had spent more than $372,000 in attorney fees defending the law.
The council voted 7-0 at its April 5 meeting to authorize having Mayor Cassie Franklin sign the settlement.
Franklin said in a statement that “the amendments to the ordinance we are agreeing to enact will provide us with a new tool for addressing issues at individual stands while also providing support to employees that are being coerced or exploited in any way.”
The 2017 rulebook replaced city rules that penalized any baristas caught baring themselves. The stand owners got around this by replacing the baristas with fresh ones to continue allowing indecent exposures as part of attracting customers.
