The point of a business is to make money, and some entrepreneurs try to distinguish their business with unusual gimmicks. Remember the topless car wash? Whether it’s a good idea isn’t the point. The point is to bring in business, which brings us to the highly competitive enterprise of coffee.

Starbucks? Who would have ever believed that normal sentient beings would spring for $5 to buy a cup of joe they could purchase for $1? They gave the sizes odd names, and came up with beverages by adding -ccino to the end of unrelated words, all to create the fiction that their peculiar tasting grind was better than the swill you could buy for a fifth of the price. And it worked.

That meant that people who wanted to compete had to come up with something different, and so Hillbilly Hotties was born. What’s their gimmick? The police were not amused.

While the actual name of the model is unknown, I choose to call her Dawn.

A trio of bikini baristas has been arrested for allegedly serving up more than just coffee at Washington state espresso stands.

The scantily clad women, who worked at Hillbilly Hotties in Everett, were jailed Wednesday following a surprise bust by police carrying out a search warrant after rising complaints by residents.

Scantily clad women serving up a hot, steamin’ cup of coffee? Well, if that’s your thing, why not? And if the coffee happens to be tasty as well, all the better, as some of us really don’t care about the servers’ attire, or lack thereof. But the cops in Everett Washington apparently care. A lot.

So, what part of the butt is the ass crack, really? As a legal matter.

You see, a fight over scantily clad baristas in one Washington State community hinges partly on whether the average person can objectively tell which part of the bottom counts as the “anal cleft” and whether police could (or would) objectively be able to measure whether one is exposed or not.

The city of Everett, Washington, is trying to get rid of its “bikini barista” stands with an ordinance that forces the ladies there to wear more coverage. The city claims that these tiny stands where scantily clad women serve coffee are incubators of prostitution, public lewdness, and crime. They’re trying to shut them down by forcing the women to button up.

Free the nipple is one thing, but the crack?

The stands are fighting back and won an initial injunction against the ordinance’s enforcement in December. A U.S. district judge determined that Everett’s ordinance was too vague in its description of what needed to be covered and thereby risked arbitrary enforcement issues. And the judge further determined that the law likely violated the First Amendment free expression rights of the women who worked there.

There are, of course, highly technical terms for various body parts that are generally sufficient descriptors for blind dates and high school sock hops, but when it comes to shutting down a business for its exercise of free expression, the vagary of “anal cleft” isn’t good enough.

The Everett brief says anybody who is confused about the anal cleft can just consult a dictionary on what the two words mean. Wikipedia and Wiktionary both have pages for the gluteal cleft and intergluteal cleft. Embedded are what somebody apparently thinks are helpful pictures. To the right is the image included for the Wiktionary article. As you’ll note, it’s really just a picture of a naked butt. A perfectly lovely one. But how much of it counts as the cleft? Where does the asscrack end and the butt cheek begin?

Because really, if you can’t be prosecuted based on wikipedia, what good is the internet anyway? But then, given what is commonly worn on beaches and at poolsides elsewhere, are the concerns and complaints of the prudish gluteal-challenged of Everett really worth this level of effort, this expense?

While I’m not blind to complaints by the neighbors about all the public lewdness happening (these are frequently walk-up stands, not indoor locations) and any actual victimization that may have occurred, the city here has focused on bans as a solution, which just makes a black market for butts. And that’s just silly. All the time and money Everett has spent here could have been used to figure out a way for customers to get their coffee with a side order of booty while minimizing exposure for those who don’t want to see it.

This is happening in Washington State, not known for its temperate winter climate, and the novelty of the bare baristas can’t last forever. Are the neighbors losing sleep over the beaches of Ipanema, or do they throw things at their telly when Beachfront Bargain Hunt comes on?

On the other hand, these cases make for some interesting motions for summary judgment over the photographic evidence of excessive cleftiness. Still, the amusement of lawyers and judges isn’t the point of law, and the old maxim, de minimis non curat lex would seem to apply*. As offended as the locals may be by the fact that some women have tushies of greater interest than theirs, they would do best to enjoy a cup of coffee and turn the other cheek.

*As one might expect, the “what about plumbers” question was promptly raised.