How the 'three-foot rule' came to be
Toolbox
Peter Hirschfeld Times Argus Staff - Published: December 28, 2006
BARRE – Paul Poirier figures his legacy will be measured in feet. Three feet, to be exact.
Poirier, the former councilman who authored an ordinance governing strip shows at Barre's Planet Rock, says he'll forever be known for the "three-foot rule."
"I guess that's what I'll be famous for," Poirier says. Planet Rock now risks losing its entertainment license for allegedly violating the three-foot rule in July. "I took more grief from my friends that used to patronize that place than you can believe."
In fact, the rule, which stipulates that "nude, semi-nude or partially clothed" dancers must maintain a three-foot buffer between themselves and their ogling customers, marked a victory of sorts for the 16-year-old gentlemen's club.
In the mid-1990s, the club owned by Daniel Garr Sr., came under fire from Barre church groups protesting the titillating shows performed there. The controversy ignited after another strip-club entrepreneur, Shawn Cliche, arrived in Barre looking to start his own strip club within city limits.
"He was trying to have these strip dancing places all over Vermont and he wanted to have one in Barre in back of Depot Square," Poirier recalls. Cliche won brief infamy in Vermont after opening Club Fantasy in South Burlington in 1995. The club later folded. "He came before the city council and asked for a permit under the pretense he was going to have a Mexican restaurant."
Weeks later, after granting the restaurant permit, councilors were disturbed by an advertisement in the local paper.
"This ad said they were going to have topless dancing," Poirier says. Feeling burned, the council revisited its prior decision. "I guess maybe they were going to serve chips and salsa or something … The council ended up saying 'no' to this person."
The issue didn't die with the "Mexican restaurant," however. The city's religious community, Poirier says, clamored for a city-wide ban on topless dancing and set Planet Rock squarely in its sights. The council, besieged by offended citizens, was under heavy pressure to act.
"At that time, because of what happened with the other place, local people from the church alliance thought, 'Hey, let's go after this other place, too,'" Poirier explains.
Then-police chief Ed Fish testified before the council that Planet Rock was an exemplary liquor-serving establishment with an immaculate record. Councilors, Poirier says, were reluctant to tamper with the livelihood of a local businessman based solely on the moral objections of a vocal minority.
"You may not like their entertainment, but there was no reason to close them down," Poirier says. "So we looked for a compromise."
Poirier suggested the three-foot rule, a policy by which Garr insisted his dancers already abided.
"We figured, in dealing with the church groups, if it's going to make you feel good at night having this three-foot rule, that's fine with us," Poirier says. "I never heard a single word of protest or any feeling from Danny Garr or anyone involved in his establishment that this would violate any of their rights. There was never a challenge to it. It went into effect very quietly and that was the last we heard of it."
Why three feet?
"It was totally arbitrary," Poirier says. "There was no scientific reasoning or anything. It could have been four feet. It could have been two feet. I just picked three."
Poirier says he took some ribbing for his role in the restriction but that, ultimately, the three-foot rule satisfied opposing sides in a heated controversy.
"I went into a local establishment after and my friends and the bar tender gave me a drink with a yardstick," he says. "Every now and again, it still comes up and people laugh about it."