As liquor commissioner, Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl is expected to decide next week whether to recommend granting a liquor license to the controversial Tilted Kilt sports bar, which wants to open downtown. The final decision then rests with the city council.

Word of the pub’s possible opening elicited strong opposition from several residents who claim the company’s provocatively dressed waitresses essentially sell sex. Supporters counter that Tilted Kilt would provide a much-needed boost to a downtown business district dotted with vacant storefronts.

“The last couple of years have been a struggle,” said Evanston business owner Ted Mavrakis, who hopes to bring Tilted Kilt to his Fountain Square building at 1601 Sherman Ave.

Mavrakis owns eight commercial properties in downtown Evanston, and has operated Evanston’s Giordano’s Pizza for about 30 years. He said renting space in his buildings has been tough in today’s economy, and the weight of property tax payments increases with each vacancy.

“I think it would be a good idea,” he said of opening a Tilted Kilt in downtown Evanston. “It would create jobs. It would be great for the city. They make good volume. They have good traffic.”

Nearly 2,000 residents have signed a petition asking Tisdahl and the Liquor Control Review Board to deny a liquor license to Tilted Kilt.

“We believe a Tilted Kilt would endanger Evanston’s girl children, miseducate our boys and girls, disrespect Evanston’s women and our Fountain Square war memorial, insult many of our men, diminish the safety and appeal of our downtown and undermine the laws against sex discrimination and sexual harassment,” the petition reads.

Started in 2003 in Las Vegas, Tilted Kilt describes its founding vision as a “contemporary, Celtic-themed sports pub staffed with beautiful servers,” according to the company’s website. “And guess what the uniforms would be … knee-high socks and short, sexy plaid kilts with matching plaid bra’s under white camp shirts tantalizingly tied to show off the midriff.”

The problem, according to some residents, is that those uniforms and the company’s sexually tinged marketing messages objectify women — with potentially dangerous consequences.

“A place like Tilted Kilt trains men to associate school girls with sexual arousal,” said Kathleen Flaherty, an Evanston resident and petition organizer. By doing so, Flaherty said, “it further breaks down the taboos against incest and pedophilia.”

As Flaherty and fellow petition organizer Cynthia Farenga pointed out, Tilted Kilt’s red plaid skirts are dangerously similar to Catholic school uniforms worn by young girls in Evanston and across the North Shore.

“This is sexual entertainment masquerading as an eatery,” said resident Damien Flynn. “The conversations I have with my two sons about why I find this offensive are the same conversations I would have with them if a strip club opened in downtown. Actually, I would have much more respect if they were trying to open a strip club because that is at least honest and authentic.”

Supporters and representatives of the company downplay the pub’s association with sex, and call Tilted Kilt a “high-end sports bar.”

“I would challenge all of you to go and visit a Tilted Kilt and see for yourself what type of business this is, because it’s absolutely offensive, irresponsible and a misrepresentation to even come close to describing it as a soft-core porn type of business,” said Carol Mengel, Mavrakis’ wife.

“These restaurants are beautiful,” Mengel added. “And let me make it clear, the entertainment is not the young ladies and women that are working there as wait staff. The entertainment is that it’s a sports bar.”

Both Mengel and Mavrakis said the outfits worn by Tilted Kilt staff are “not that revealing.”

“Yes, the waitresses have skirts and some of the body is exposed,” Mavrakis said. “Yes, maybe their breasts are a bit lifted. I guess it’s up to each individual to assess how provocative the dress. I didn’t find it that provocative.”

“Yes, there is cleavage showing. Yes, there is midriff showing,” Mengel said. “But go the public beach and the public pools of Evanston everyday in the summer, and I challenge you not to find tons of women more scantily clad. Your children are being exposed to that all the time. That’s just our society today.”

Mark Hanby, vice president of franchise development for Tilted Kilt, also said that more skin could be seen at any public beach.

“Our costumes are mildly provocative,” he said. “They’re sexy. We don’t hide from that.”

Some residents said they were concerned with the amount of sexual harassment waitresses could be subjected to, but Hanby and other Tilted Kilt representatives said that the company takes the necessary steps to protect its employees and customers.

“Nobody is coming to Tilted Kilt thinking they’re going home with these girls,” Hanby said. “There is no sexual innuendo in any of our marketing or any of our materials, menu, names of products – or anything like that – because we don’t want to put the girls in an objectified position with guests where that could become awkward.”

But a quick look at the company’s website shows several examples of sexual innuendo, from the pub’s motto – “A cold beer never looked so good” – to the 2011 Kilt Girl Collectors Calendar, which features a bikini-clad woman standing in front of a liquid-spewing rusty pipe.

“We try to raise our kids in an environment that treats them as whole human beings, not just the sum of body parts,” said Evanston resident Liz Reeves.

Some petition signers worried that the presence of Tilted Kilt would make the streets of downtown Evanston less safe and less attractive for visitors and residents, and would attract “drunken, titillated men.”

But Tilted Kilt representatives said the characterization of the pub’s customers as “hoodlums” is misplaced.

“There’s not one recorded incident in any of our bars,” said Anthony Baroud, Tilted Kilt area developer for the Chicagoland market. “We have a very high standard of the type of conduct that’s not only for our employees but for guests who come visit. Someone who is over-served and trying to make rude comments to servers — they’re escorted out immediately.”

Tilted Kilt has locations in Peoria, Woodridge, Chicago, Chicago Ridge, Rockford, Elgin, Roselle, Oak Brook Terrace, and Vernon Hills, and is expected to open soon in Schaumburg.

Chicago Ridge Mayor Eugene Siegel said he has had no complaints with the Tilted Kilt in his town.

“We had no reaction from residents,” he said of the pub’s opening about two years ago. “Not one person objected. I did go see the location in Woodridge and I saw nothing with it. There’s nothing distasteful about them.”

Despite claims of an incident-free environment at Tilted Kilt, opponents of the pub found several reports of crimes committed in or outside Tilted Kilts in Illinois and elsewhere, including an incident in February of this year when a man allegedly stabbed several people outside the Elgin Tilted Kilt, according to various reports.

For some business owners in downtown Evanston, the pub’s interest in coming to town is an exciting prospect.

Kevin Pearson, a commercial real estate investor who is thinking of opening a Tilted Kilt in Bolingbrook, said bringing the pub to Evanston would be “a very positive thing.”

“It’s pretty dire straits down there,” Pearson said.

“Downtown merchants need foot traffic to be successful, and we need help from the city in attracting new retail businesses to the downtown area,” said Katherine Pappas, a downtown Evanston merchant.

“People walking in downtown Evanston, exploring our shops, is critical to the success of small businesses,” Pappas said. “Within two blocks of the location we’ve discussed, over 25 vacant retail spaces is what I counted this afternoon. Vacant places create a vacant life.”

Northwestern University sociology professor Gary Fine said that opening a Tilted Kilt in Evanston would not necessarily equate to improved business for its neighbors.

“It strikes me as a restaurant that would do very well in certain kinds of places that are oriented toward leisure and a sports bar and a male customer base,” Fine said. “It would strike me that Evanston wouldn’t be the ideal location for a Tilted Kilt.”

“They may think downtown is a good place for a bar with waitresses who have endowments larger than the university,” Fine continued. “I have my doubts about that.”

Fine said the issue that arises with establishments, such as Tilted Kilt, that rely on sexuality for at least part of their appeal is when those establishments bump up against local standards of the communities in which they seek to set down roots.

“We believe in freedom and that people should be allowed to invest money in what is legal,” he said. “Evanston was, until the early 1970s, a dry community. And so there’s a certain irony that the bar’s tag line is about cold beer never looking so good, and being in blocks from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union headquarters. It’s an indication that the old, frumpy prohibitionist Evanston continues to evolve.”