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“That would be fine under the new policy, although it would be subject to any municipal bylaws,” said Tatjana Laskovic, spokeswoman for the province’s liquor regulator.

For years, Alberta’s strict nudity legislation has been the bane of the province’s burlesque performers, whose relatively tame stage shows have been lumped into the same category as exotic dancers.

If burlesque dancers had breasts exposed, they were forbidden to get within one meter of audiences members or other dancers, a measure that effectively banned kicklines.

They were forbidden from using props to make sex jokes.

And pasties, an adhesive nipple coverings invented to circumvent 1920s-era anti-nudity laws, could have gotten a performer arrested.

“Frankly, when we did pasty reveals, it never felt comfortable; there was a fear of repercussions,” said Raven Virginia, a Calgary-based burlesque performer who has been championing the reform for six years.

“I cried,” she said when she first learned of the “victory” Monday morning,

In 2010, Virginia’s burlesque troupe, the Garter Girls was subjected to a raid of sorts when they had a show at Calgary’s Club Paradiso interrupted by a fire marshal, police officers and a liquor regulator.

Ever since, Alberta has been one of the few jurisdictions north of the Rio Grande in which burlesque performers have been forced to take the stage in full bras.