Ummm, I guess some do not read the thread!:rolleyes:

It is called BS and excusses by some schools.

We?

It was told to me that it was againt the law when I first went through that we couldn't have houses for this reason. But as I am in my sorority I'm slowing realizing it's because if one sorority got a house the administration wants all the sororities to have houses. :-P

It's actually true in some states. My sister was in a house at a school in New Hampshire and they had brothel laws. Not even just with regard to sororities. She lived in a house with a bunch of girls and they had to make sure to have a certain amount of kitchens so they could divide it into "apartments" and get around the law.

THERE IS NOT A BROTHEL LAW IN ANY STATE. IT IS A ZONING LAW.

If a bunch of guys had lived in that house, they would have had to do the same thing.

Plus, whether a housing unit has a kitchen has nothing to do with whether or not it's an apartment.

Yep and those zoning laws don't apply to sorority houses as a rule. Townhomes/apartments are a whole different ball game.

/for LetsgoFlyAKite cause 33girl knows this shit.

Well, I know UMass Lowell doesn't have any sorority houses near campus, but its definitely because of the city's law against it. It was written about in the campus paper back in September. it isn't technically a "brothel law", but is referred to as such.

...and those who refer to it as a "brothel law" are incorrect. :)

Sure, yes, its a misnomer, but the original intent of the zoning laws was in fact to prevent women from living together. Think of the location and history; when this was established, how were women treated? Massachusetts has SO many of these old, outdated laws.

Care to cite your source on that?

Are you really going to fight me on this through a message board? Because I really don't have time for this. If you'd like to go in to the city yourself, go right ahead. I have quite a bit of a thing called life I'd like to live, and finals are far more important than some petty argument with someone online.

My hat's off to you.

And this isn't a "fight", dear. No need to get pissy because someone asked you to cite your source and you can't provide it.

If you bothered to read the thread, you'll see that you're not the first one to pull something out of your ass not be able to back it up. You're probably not going to be the last, either.

So if Lowell, MA zoning laws were really created to prevent women whores from living together, I'm really curious to see the documentation for that.

Welcome to GreekChat. :)

Well, thank you for your welcome here.

I'm sure that the original paperwork on those zoning laws are buried under years of other needless laws, again, MA is well known for the history, and laws around here are pretty historic.

However, there is no need to call my reaction "pissy", and lastly, do not make the assumption that I pulled my comment "out of my ass", because I did not. My lack of documentation is primarily due to the fact that I don't work in Lowell City Hall and would rather not spend my time digging through the red tape to extinguish the blue laws of my City.

But you can have at it if you'd like. I would also like to read their exact wording on the matter.

Too bad there is nothing in online edition of the paper THe UML Conncector for that Sept-Nov that backs your claim. But, after you're done being busy with finals, perhaps you could get the print edition of the paper and scan it for us? I'd be very interested in knowing. You see, I have a personal interest in this as I have family in Lowell who rent buildings they own. I would want to inform them right away to make sure they aren't breaking the law.

My friend down the hall actually had (it was about 2 months ago, I'd be ecstatic if she still has it) a copy of that edition. It even quoted one of my friends and showed a picture of his fraternity's house.

The paper only made one reference to a "brothel law", and it was only in relation to the sororities' lack of housing.

OMG. Your family's running whorehouses?

We so can't be friends anymore.

http://www.snopes.com/college/halls/brothel.asp

If you haven't already read it.

Newspapers are not always very good about doing their research when writing about Greeks. If there is indeed a "brothel law" it should be an easy matter to call the appropriate city office and ask for the citation. You may even be able to do a search function on the city website.

As noted before, without specific written proof, experience teaches us that the odds are the city may have an ordinance specifying that there is a limit to the number of non-related people who can live in a home but that unless it is specific to women (which would, in this day and age, be quickly struck down, I think) it cannot be called a "brothel law". The newspaper was WRONG.

I did read it, but what I am talking about has nothing to do with sororities being "outlawed" on campus. My sorority is local, and not affiliated with the school. I'm talking about a generalized city law.

My university has housing with 8 girls living in one suite, and that itself debunks the "myth". At least for the implication described on snopes.com

for that, snopes is absolutely correct. but again, that's not what im referring to.

Newspapers can be wrong!

I guess if you want to get technical, it would be the Boy's family. But understand. I wouldn't want your good name to be smutted by association with me. :(

I found it amusing the Massachusetts Law About Landlord and Tenant from the Mass Trial Court Law Library cited Snopes about this matter.

I thought Greek Life wasn't recognized by the school? I could be very wrong about that, and I apologize if I am.

Oh good lord.
LOL.

Emmy, look through the pages in this thread. This exact conversation has been had numerous times. If you don't want to believe anyone here, how about an independent source like Snopes? The article is here: http://www.snopes.com/college/halls/brothel.asp

Snopes may have only addressed the idea of sororities being "outlawed", but the argument remains the same if you are talking about sorority housing being "outlawed" - it is not because of some non-existant "brothel law", but because of the campus administration or ZONING laws.

Yes, I understand that newspapers can be wrong, all I did is provide one other example of a so-called "brothel law" being mentioned in relation to sororities owning houses in the city, off campus.

Dear God, it's not the end of the world if we let this freaking drop. I'll get back to this in a day or so, I need to write a paper.

Have a good evening. :)

Why is it so important to YOU that you can't just admit you were wrong?

I keep forgetting his family is your family now (or soon to be).

You must take me to the whorehouses on our next road trip!

This thread is so amusing. How many different ways can it be said? THERE IS NO LAW.

still going
 

I love that this thread is still going....

Just wanted to say that the rumor on my undergrad campus was that they were considered a brothel if they had more than 5 girls living in a house with an oven. Yea...not really sure why people believed that, but what does an oven have to do with things? Baking=Whoring?

I think this rumor came about because the one sorority house with an oven only housed 5 girls. The other sorority houses had about 25 living in them with no oven.

:eek: I hope it's a rumor. Sounds like the other sorority girls were jealous.

This is kind of an interesting twist on the rumor because it does draw a distinction between dorms and houses since most dorms wouldn't be though of as having ovens.

It's not rational or correct of course, and I think a lot of dorms had kitchens but at least it shows a little originality for a variation that would "explain" what the difference was between a sorority house that would be affected by the "brothel law" and the dorms that every campus probably had.

Is there a graceful way to tell someone they're full of malarkey when they try to inform me of their city's surprisingly common brothel law? I swear I must hear it once a week.

At a province recruitment work shop, a girl in the newest chapter told our adviser and god and everyone that Marysville (or wherever her school was) had a law that said more than five women living together was a brothel and that's why they couldn't have a house. AND NO ONE CORRECTED HER.

GC is turning me into the most bizarre kind of snob: a GLO fact elitist. :p

Direct her to Snopes.com and kindly tell her that brothel laws simply do not exist. If they still don't believe you, ask them to see documentation. :)

Lowell, MA
 

Here's a link to the city's zoning law (took me about 5 minutes to find).

http://www.lowellma.gov/depts/dpd/pe...ingOrdinance07

I couldn't find any mention in my quick scanning on the 105 pages but I could very well have missed something.:D

At Indiana State only one of the nine sororities have a house (Sigma Kappa). The rest of the sororities live in a stairwell in the Lincoln Quadrangles. When talking to all the different sororities, they all say that there is a "brothel" law in Terre Haute.

Here is the link to Time Magazine, an article on Terre Haute, which was Boom City, USA back in the day. This article was written and soon after, the legislation for the Brothel Law in Terre Haute was put into place.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...8978-1,00.html

Eventually, Mayor Larrison is convinced my President Rankin to pursue the Brothel Law because the prostitutes were moving into sorority houses, that was when Indiana State stepped in and voted to rid the sororities of their houses, they were to live on campus in the Quadrangles where they could be monitored and they could keep the prostitutes out.

I will do my best once I get back to Terre Haute to ge the legislation codes. I am 90% sure that they are still in place. There is my proof of how the problem got started. Now it is trying to find exactly when it was put into place that might take some digging.

You need to do better than that Time article. It makes no mention of the legislation of a "brothel law" to reduce vice or prostitution because there was no "brothel law." There was a call to action but a "brothel law" wasn't the solution.

ETA: In fact, a scholarly search for the keywords "indiana state terre haute brothel law prostitution sorority housing" yields no articles or published/released documents about a brothel law, or a law prohibiting sorority housing due to prostitution, for a reason. :) Yet the wheels on the bus will keep going 'round and 'round.

Like I said, give me until the second or third week of August. Once I get to Terre Haute, I work near the court house, I can get your answer quickly. But we learned in our State History course at ISU that there is legislation in Terre Haute. I am pretty sure they wouldn't teach it to us if it was false. I will back up my sources, I just need to get to them.

Excuses:

Excuses are tools of incompetence
building monuments to nothingness on
pillars of insubstantialities.
Those that employ this theory or its practices
are seldom capable of anything but....
EXCUSES!!!!

Okay.

There are a bunch of website references to brothel laws and dumb laws that numerous states (coincidentally, more than one state is reported as prohibiting 12 or more women from living together....) supposedly have on the books about women living together constituting a brothel. However, none of these sites have credible sources, they tend to get their info from other sites, and I've never seen anyone actually cite the actual legislation.