Town Bans Nudity but Keeps Fracking

Anti-fracking protests have been lining up across the country recently. From street demonstrations to dozens of controversial city resolutions that ban hydraulic fracturing on property within their jurisdictions, emotions seem to be high when it comes to guessing about what this multi-million dollar industry could mean for America’s small towns.

One small community in southeastern Illinois, however, seems to have its priorities squarely on track. The danger of fracking to the nearby water source, the city council has decided, is not potential pollution, toxicity or other ecological issues, but nudity.

The small town of Fairfield Ill., established a “fracking committee” earlier this year when it realized that the rich geologic formations of southern Illinois could put the town at the center of this new industry. The mandate of the committee was, in part, to find out what most vexed the residents of towns and cities that unwittingly hosted truckloads and campers of “frackers.”

Not surprisingly, North Dakota, where hydraulic fracturing is abundant, came up squarely on the radar.

Towns like Williston and Dickinson, once sleepy stopovers in North Dakota’s oil shale country, have been transformed by the fracking industry – and the supposed vices of a virulent young workforce.

Both towns have seen their populations grow by almost 10 percent in the last year, resulting in housing problems and a boom in liquor sales. In Williston, it’s also resulted in a substantial increase in bar fights, assaults and illegal use of weapons - all of which, according to Williston’s city commissioners, had something to do with the two strip joints near the center of town.

This month, Fairfield’s city council unanimously passed a bylaw that would make it “illegal for any person, firm, corporation, partnership, limited liability company or any other entity to operate any kind of business which provides as a form of entertainment either gratuitously or at cost, nude, seminude or exotic dancers.”

Its new bylaw will handily accompany the long list of codes that are already on the books concerning liquor licenses, which includes denial of a license to anyone who has been convicted of “being the keeper or is keeping a house of ill-fame,” or “pandering or other crime or misdemeanor opposed to decency and morality.”

But to be fair, it isn’t hard to understand why Fairfield’s council may be so protective of its town’s reputation. During the liquor prohibition of the 1920s, southern Illinois’ booze was supplied by the Shelton Brothers, a notorious gang that haled from none other than Fairfield itself. While they didn’t appear to do much business in their home town, the demise of one of its leaders resulted from a violent shootout with a Chicago mobster on the outskirts of Fairfield.

Maybe Fairfield’s fracking committee is on to something here. If so, it should be interesting to see what else ends up on the books as Fairfield joins the ranks of towns that have benefited from this generation's boom city phenomena.

Photo #1 courtesy of Daniel_Lobo

Photo #2 courtesy of danielfoster437