Citing constitutional questions, federal district court has issued a preliminary injunction barring the city of Minneapolis from shutting down the topless dancing at 22nd Avenue Station, one of the city’s last two venues for so-called adult entertainment outside of downtown.

As Kerry Ashmore reports in the Northeaster, the ruling from Judge Michael Davis allows the bar to continue offering topless dancing while it continues its court challenge to the city’s zoning ordinance.

The bar has been offering the entertainment with a waiver from the city since 2002, but last year an administrative law judge advised the city to begin enforcing the ordinance at the last two holdouts: 22nd Avenue Station, at 22nd and University avenues in Northeast, and at BJ’s on West Broadway on the North Side. BJ’s has since agreed to stop the dancing by the end of the year.

But Judge Davis said he could not “conclusively” decide whether the city’s ordinance passed constitutional muster, noting that the bar owner Glen Peterson had “raised serious doubts” about the law. Among the issues is whether the entertainment creates any “adverse secondary effects” in the neighborhood. Davis said the city had not adequately proven that such effects exist.

The city will have a chance to prove its case at an upcoming pre-trial conference, though attorney Randall Tigue, who is representing the bar, doubts they will be able to do so. “There is no such evidence,” he said.