from zipfile import ZipFile
from scipy.io.arff import loadarff

archive = ZipFile( 'archive.zip', 'r' )
datafile = archive.open( 'datafile.arff' )
data = loadarff( datafile )
# …
datafile.close()
archive.close()

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./m.py", line 6, in <module>
    data = loadarff( datafile )
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/scipy/io/arff/arffread.py", line 541, in loadarff
    return _loadarff(ofile)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/scipy/io/arff/arffread.py", line 550, in _loadarff
    rel, attr = read_header(ofile)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/scipy/io/arff/arffread.py", line 323, in read_header
    while r_comment.match(i):
TypeError: cannot use a string pattern on a bytes-like object