For this lawyer, naughty is nice | www.myajc.com

A little known fact, learned while speaking with lawyer Alan Begner: The 1960s musical “Hair” helped make Atlanta one of the country’s rare bastions of nude dancing.

This is the naked truth.

Begner, who is distinguished by his own hair — a full, fluffy white beard and accompanying ponytail — said the city’s thriving adult entertainment industry was an “unintended consequence” of a long ago legal morality battle that still ripples today.

But more on that later. For 31 years, Begner has been in the vanguard of holding back the Forces of Wholesomeness. He represents most of metro Atlanta’s nude dancing joints and, along with his wife and law partner, Cory, a good portion of its naughty novelty shops. It’s a good living.

The newly created city of Brookhaven wants to close the Pink Pony, neighboring Doraville annexed and wants to shutter the Oasis, and Atlanta recently tried — unsuccessfully — to sanitize the Cheshire Bridge corridor. Begner is or was involved in all those fights.

Let us not forget Sandy Springs, the well-heeled north metro city that was created in 2005 and almost immediately set out to close the three nude clubs in its limits.

They are all still open.

Begner, a Sandy Springs resident, portrays his clients as small business owners struggling against government overreach, as pariahs operating legally and within their constitutional limits. The nude bars in Brookhaven and Doraville “are not insensitive clubs located next to churches. They police themselves very strongly. They provide hundreds of jobs and pay taxes. The only reason (why the cities want) to ruin these clubs is morality. But morality is an improper motive to use.”

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