So Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled last week in Edge v. City of Everett (W.D. Wash.):
The Dress Code Ordinance requires all employees, owners, and operators of "Quick-Service Facilities" to wear clothing that covers "the upper and lower body (breast/pectorals, stomach, back below the shoulder blades, buttocks, top three inches of the legs below the buttocks, pubic area and genitals)." …
The Court finds that "a gender-based discriminatory purpose has, at least in some measure, shaped" the Ordinance. The record shows this Ordinance was passed in part to have an adverse impact on female workers at bikini barista stands. The Ordinance's ostensibly neutral classification is also an obvious pretext for discrimination based on the law's application. Plaintiffs' expert Dr. Roberts points out that the Dress Code Ordinance prohibits clothing typically worn by women rather than men, including mid-riff and scoop-back shirts, as well as bikinis. There is evidence in the record that the bikini barista profession, clearly a target of the Ordinance, is entirely or almost entirely female. It is difficult to imagine how this Ordinance would be equally applied to men and women in practice. It appears designed to ban not just "pasties and g-strings" or bikinis, but a wide range of women's clothing. Intermediate scrutiny is appropriate here.
