Tall, skinny and scantily clad, please

A federal appeals court ruled that Everett, Washington’s dress code banning coffee shop baristas from wearing bikinis is unconstitutional. 

In a win for the city’s drive-up coffee shacks, where “bikini baristas” are known to serve up the java with a side of cleavage, a judge with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that the dress code violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it “clearly treats women differently than men by banning a wide variety of women’s clothing.” 

In 2017, Everett passed a law prohibiting quick service food and drink peddlers from showing off certain body parts, including their stomachs, backs below the shoulder blades and “top three inches of the legs below the buttocks.” 

The city did not tie the law to food safety, and instead cited concerns about the potential exploitation of women and “adverse impacts upon minors,” according to an analysis published by Reason magazine.