WESTBROOK – The Westbrook City Council on Monday unanimously approved a nude entertainment ordinance.

One resident spoke at the meeting, saying he did not approve of having nude entertainment establishments in Westbrook.

Thomas Hallett, an attorney representing Dreamers Cabaret, whose attempt to open in the city prompted the ordinance, was at the meeting but did not speak. Dreamers and the city continue to fight in court over the business’ right to operate. After the meeting, when asked why he didn’t speak against the ordinance, Hallett said, “There was no use beating a dead horse.”

The ordinance regulates such establishments within the city. Businesses that offer nude entertainment can only operate in the industrial zone and must be more than 500 feet from schools, churches, homes, libraries, juvenile centers and places that sell alcohol under the ordinance.

Dancers at the establishments cannot be fully nude and may not throw their garments to patrons or make physical contact with them.

Discussion of this ordinance arose out of the controversial opening of Dreamers Cabaret, a strip club on Warren Avenue that opened Sept. 17 before the city abruptly shut it down the next day, citing code violations.

Hallett has claimed the city used the violations as a pretext to shut down the club after realizing there was no ordinance on the books regulating such facilities.

When the council gave a first reading of the ordinance in October, Hallett attended the meeting and gave an impassioned speech about why the councilors should vote against it.

There was no additional discussion of the ordinance before its adoption Monday night.

Dreamers is next scheduled to appeal code enforcement’s Sept. 21 revocation of its certificate of occupancy at a meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals on Nov. 10.