BRADENTON, Florida — The county took the battle over strippers showing too much skin to the nation’s highest court.

County attorney Jim Minix said Manatee County filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision that the county hasn’t proven that strip clubs harm the community.

In July, the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta said a federal judge shouldn’t have dismissed a lawsuit filed by two strip clubs seeking to overturn county nudity ordinances.

Minix argued the appeals court misinterpreted past Supreme Court decisions about efforts to rein in adult entertainment. The petition focused specifically on three past Supreme Court decisions dealing with public nudity and efforts to restrict adult businesses.

The clubs’ attorney, Luke Lirot, said the Supreme Court is unlikely to take up the case.

Cities and counties across the country have tried to ban or restrict strip clubs, adult bookstores and movie theaters.

Local officials argue that adult entertainment leads to drug use, prostitution, crime and lowered property values.

Peek-A-Boo Lounge of Bradenton and Temptations II (now Cleopatra’s) near Palmetto sued the county and Sheriff Charlie Wells in federal court in November 1999, claiming two local ordinances passed in 1998 and 1999 violated their First Amendment rights.

The 1998 ordinance allowed the Sheriff’s Office to search adult establishments without a warrant.

The 1999 ordinance, which garnered national media attention, said “the mere appearance of Nude persons in Public Places generally increases incidents of prostitution, sexual assaults and batteries (and) attracts other criminal activity to the community.”

Under that ordinance, both men and women are prohibited from showing more than one-third of the buttocks. Women are not allowed to show more than one-fourth of their breasts.

Violators are subject to a $500 fine or a 60-day jail sentence.

The ordinances could apply to all public places, but have only been enforced twice — in strip clubs.

Two weeks after U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore ruled in April 2002 that the ordinances were not unconstitutional, undercover deputies were in the Peek-A-Boo Lounge and Temptations II.

Deputies charged a dancer and a manager from each club, with violating the ordinance. Deputies said that the dancers’ bikini bottoms didn’t cover enough skin.

Those misdemeanor cases are on hold until the federal issue has been resolved.

In July, the appeals court decided Whittemore should not have dismissed the case.

A three-judge panel ruled that the Manatee County Commission “failed to rely on any evidence” when it passed the ordinances.

The court also said the county had “effectively re-drawn the boundary between nudity and non-nudity” in conflict with two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found the type of clothing banned in Manatee County to be legal.

The county defined nudity broadly, the court said, when it mandated a certain percentage of skin coverage.

The clubs submitted a two-volume report that included building permit data, appraisal records, crime reports and research showing that strip clubs have no adverse effect on the community.

The clubs’ studies showed lower crime rates and higher property values near the clubs than in comparable neighborhoods, and cited a 1996 sheriff’s award for Peek-A-Boo’s “outstanding contribution to the community.”

If the county’s petition is unsuccessful, the case will go back to the U.S. District Court in Tampa.