Nude women have been on the menu at The Sutler for years, but the Nashville pub covered up the 19th-century Victorian photos after being warned they might be too racy for state law.
The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission decided Wednesday that only one photo showing a woman's genital area was off-limits, but by then every nipple on the menus had been covered in black marker.
The pub has displayed the artistic antique photos for many years and had never attracted notice of state regulators until recently.
Commission agents had told the pub owner that some of the photos, thought to be from the mid-1800s, might run afoul of state laws that limit sexually explicit material or performances where alcohol is served.
The law bans such things as displays of sexual intercourse and nude wait staff, as well as "scenes wherein artificial devices or inanimate objects are employed to depict, or drawings employed to portray, any of the prohibited activities
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/03/31/national2046EST0893.DTL
The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission decided Wednesday that only one photo showing a woman's genital area was off-limits, but by then every nipple on the menus had been covered in black marker.
The pub has displayed the artistic antique photos for many years and had never attracted notice of state regulators until recently.
Commission agents had told the pub owner that some of the photos, thought to be from the mid-1800s, might run afoul of state laws that limit sexually explicit material or performances where alcohol is served.
The law bans such things as displays of sexual intercourse and nude wait staff, as well as "scenes wherein artificial devices or inanimate objects are employed to depict, or drawings employed to portray, any of the prohibited activities
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/03/31/national2046EST0893.DTL