Topless Cafe in Maine

It seems a Maine businessman has decided to open a topless cafe in Vassalboro, a small town just north of the capital, Augusta. Despite the widespread disapproval of the proposed shop, the town said there’s nothing it can do about it.

Let me be clear about what is being planned here: The cafe would serve coffee and bakery items and customers will be waited on by topless waitresses. There is certainly no advantage to waiting tables topless (in fact I can imagine spills of hot coffee would in fact be more dangerous), so I’m assuming the only purpose of this is for the pleasure of the customers.

Ew.

It’s unfortunate, too, because Vasalboro is a place (like many in the US right now) that could really use new businesses that create good jobs. I would hate to see women apply there because they can’t find an alternative. My guess is that it won’t last more than a month anyway, if only because of the crappy location.

I do believe that if a woman wants to work at a topless bar, or at a strip club or wherever, she should certainly have that right, but my fear is of exploitation of women who need the money, and of waitresses getting harrassed.