By Greg Bluestein / Special

The five exotic dancers were regulars at a popular Atlanta strip club until a city ordinance aimed at underage drinking threatened their jobs. On Monday they took their case to Georgia’s top court, arguing the law is a naked attempt to target nude dancing spots.

The five women were 19 or 20 years old in 2007 when the city passed a law banning anyone under 21 from entering a store that sold alcoholic beverages on the premises.

It exempted convenience stores, stadiums, concert halls and a slew of other places, but not adult entertainment clubs that make most of their money from alcohol sales. That meant the five young women’s days at the Cheetah Lounge were numbered.

They filed a lawsuit claiming the ordinance was unconstitutional because it violated their free speech. After a trial judge ruled in favor of the city in January, they quickly appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court.

CHEETAH CHEATERS

Alan Begner, an adult entertainment attorney who represents the five women, labeled it a right-to-work case. He said his clients have the right to vote, to sue, to serve in the military, but suddenly were stripped of the right to strip.

“They are adults and there’s no good reason to deny them a right to work, a right to be first-class citizens,’’ he said.

He accused city council members of adopting the ordinance with no evidence that the dancers were underage drinkers, and called it a misplaced effort to single out strip clubs instead of other problem spots, motivated by election year politics to get votes.

“Convenience stores are where underage teens go to drink,’’ Begner said. “And that’s where 15-year-olds can sell to them.’’

City attorney Amber Ali Robinson countered that the ordinance doesn’t ban women under 21 from nude dancing – only from dancing in the strip clubs that make most of their revenue from selling alcohol.

She urged the court not to flout the will of city leaders seeking to tighten alcohol rules, and asked the justices to find that the ordinance helps to fight  “the evils of underage drinking.’’

STATE BRIEFS

UNEMPLOYMENT UP AGAIN

The state Labor Department says the unemployment rate in metro Atlanta rose to 9.6 percent in May, up six-tenths of a point from April.

It is just slightly less than the 9.7 percent unemployment rate statewide in May -the highest rate ever recorded in Georgia.

The department said the highest unemployment rate in the state in May was in Dalton at 12.6 percent. The lowest was Athens at 6.9 percent.

The Labor Department reported that 463,883 unemployed Georgians were looking for work last month, an increase of 62 percent from May of 2008. The department said 157,544, or 34 percent, are receiving state unemployment insurance benefits and 90,000 are receiving federal extended benefits.

MORE STATE BUDGET CUTS ORDERED BY PERDUE

The new fiscal year is about to begin in Georgia, and Gov. Sonny Perdue’s budget director is telling state agencies that spending will have to be tightened some more.

Budget director Trey Childress has asked agencies to cut their spending by 3 percent in July.

He says that given recent weak tax collection figures and the uncertainty of the coming fiscal year, agencies will receive their 2010 appropriations in monthly allotments.

He says each agency will receive a full share in July, but that could change later if revenues continue to fall.

The move comes after the governor ordered agencies to eliminate 25 percent of their June spending.