Jersey City may modernize its obscenity law in the wake of its push to halt a local burlesque show that the city's legal team said would violate the 36-year-old ordinance.

The city faced criticism for putting an end to the show, which was going to star burlesque performer Lillian Bustle. Even Mayor Steve Fulop appeared to take his own legal team to task, calling them "very prude" on Twitter.

City officials have declined to say how the law would change, but Bustle said she'd be pleased with a rewrite. She said she hasn't spoken to any lawyers yet and would like the city to act on its own, not to a legal threat.

"Listen, I'm ready. I'm here for it," she said. "But I would prefer to do other, more creative things with my time."

Bustle has performed in 19 burlesque shows in Downtown Jersey City in the last three years.

The city's obscenity law is located in Chapter 251 of the city code, first adopted in 1982 by the City Council. It bans any material or performance that includes "patently offensive reproductions or descriptions of intimate sexual acts, normal or perverted" and that lack artistic or political merit. It also appears to ban anyone from possessing six or more sex toys, saying anyone with that many "is presumed to possess them with intent to" distribute them.

The law was amended in 1990 to specifically forbid people from appearing nude in public or in a business.

Gerry McCann, who was mayor in 1981 and in 1990, told The Jersey Journal the intent of the law was to stop strip clubs from opening up in Jersey City.

"The quickest way to deal with them was to pass a law about obscenity," McCann said.

Fulop said on Twitter yesterday that the law will be "amended/rescinded to fit the times."

"There are lots of laws on the books that are just outdated," he said.

Svetlana Mintcheva, program director for the National Coalition Against Censorship, told The Jersey Journal she finds the Jersey City obscenity law "confusing and strange." She does not believe it would withstand a constitutional challenge.

Mintcheva said if the law were to be applied evenly, any movie that shows nudity or sexual activity would be banned along with Bustle's shows.

A 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case introduced the three-tiered "Miller test" to determine what is obscene. One of the prongs is whether an average person, applying community standards, would find the work appeals to the prurient interest.

Jersey City's law has similar language. Mintcheva said she doubts whether the pasties-and-G-string outfits seen in Bustle's shows would violate community standards here in Jersey City.

"I've been to New Jersey. It's not that Victorian," she said.

Ward E Councilman James Solomon said he plans to send a letter to the city's top attorney objecting to his interpretation of Bustle's shows as obscene. The shows clearly have artistic merit, Solomon told The Jersey Journal, making them exempt from the obscenity law.



Solomon said he's baffled the city spent any resources shutting Bustle down.



"When I ask for things from the law department they tell me they are understaffed, but they had enough people to shut down a burlesque show that's performed for two years without complaints?" he said. "It's kind of silly."

A city spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

A Union City police lieutenant confiscating the film "Carmen Baby" from the Lincoln Theater in 1968.

Bustle is hardly the first person to run afoul of Hudson County prudes. In 1927, prosecutors refused to allow a performance of Mae West's "The Drag" at the Bayonne Opera House, saying the "sex play" was "not fit for public presentation." The play's subtitle offers a hint of why it would have caused a stir in the '20s: "A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts."

County prosecutors in 1961 twice raided the Union City publisher of adult magazines with names like "Monsieur" and "Gem." The then-prosecutor said his aides planned to study the magazines to see if they violated state obscene literature laws.

In 1972 Jersey City cops confiscated an X-rated film called "School Girls Growing Up" that played at the Roosevelt Drive-In on Route 440 because it was not legal to show pornography where it could be viewed by passers-by. Members of the police department's "bandit squad" spent several undoubtedly tortuous hours "exploring the area around the drive-in, noting exactly where the film could be seen by non-paying customers" and taking photographs of the screen, The Jersey Journal reported at the time.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.