Strip Club Tax Doesn’t Implicate Speech, Georgia Tells Justices

The US Supreme Court should skip a dispute over a Georgia tax on strip clubs because there’s no split in authority and industry-specific taxes don’t trigger First Amendment scrutiny, the state told the justices Thursday.

A petition by a strip club trade association “invites the Court to engage in a wide-ranging reassessment of its First Amendment doctrine absent any sort of split or even ‘confusion’ among the lower courts about the actual questions presented here,” Georgia argued. “That may be an appropriate subject for academic discourse, but it is not a reasonable basis for certiorari.”

The brief comes in response to the Georgia Association of Club Executives’ petition asking the justices to overturn a 2024 Georgia Supreme Court ruling that the 1% tax on adult entertainment establishments doesn’t violate the right to free speech.

Georgia initially waived its right to respond to the petition. The court requested a response, signaling that at least one justice is interested in taking up the case.

Only three state high courts—and no federal appeals courts—have addressed the question of whether taxes like this one are constitutional, and all have found that they are, Georgia argued. Other states might enact taxes like Georgia’s in the future, but until courts begin to disagree about their validity there’s no reason for the US Supreme Court to weigh in, the state said.

Regardless, the tax doesn’t implicate the First Amendment because it’s imposed on an industry, Georgia said. Georgia may tax movie theaters that engage in protected expression, so it may also tax strip clubs if they engage in expression, it said.

Even if the tax does implicate speech, it’s “expressly dedicated to mitigating a known secondary effect of the businesses to which it applies (underage sex trafficking), meaning it is subject to intermediate scrutiny,” the state said. That standard is satisfied here because it’s reasonable for the state to believe that a modest tax on strip clubs would further its interest in protecting victims, the state said.

The assessment’s “incidental, barely-there burden on expression” promotes Georgia’s interest “in a way that would be achieved less effectively absent the tax,” it said.

Alexander Volokh of Emory University School of Law, Freed Grant LLC, and J. Thomas Morgan in Atlanta represent the clubs.

The case is Ga. Ass’n of Club Execs., Inc. v. Georgia, U.S., No. 24-881, brief in opposition 5/22/25.