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HUGE News about Manhattan Clubs
Panic Time in the NYC, LI, North NJ, South CT and Upstate NY area
NYC clubowners have just lost their latest appeal regarding the continued 'grandfathering' of strip clubs located outside of the handful of 'Adult Business' zones (mostly surrounding the future stadium on Manhattan's West Side). Unless a stay order is granted, this will result in the forced closing of Scores East, Flashdancers, all of the Times Square clubs, and a good number of clubs in Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island which had previously been allowed to operate under the 60/40 rule or other 'grandfather' clauses.
If/When this happens, over 1000 dancers are going to suddenly be looking for other clubs to work in, which will certainly spill over into Northern NJ, upstate NY, southern CT, Long Island etc.
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Re: HUGE News about Manhattan Clubs
here's a stupid question, what's the 60/40 rule? i keep hearing about it but have no clue what it is
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Wow,unbelievable!
Do you think this will affect the PEC?
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Im A dj for Flashdaners inc,and i think it sucks.This supposed to be NYC,it get more & more like im living in the bible belt every day.First they "clean up" time squre and now this.What next,you can't fart in public places?
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60/40 is that 60% of the bussiness is supposed to be something else.For example if you have an adult video store 60% has to sell other types of videos,like mainstream movies.So in the case of strip clubs they put in video games & put up a wall between the lounge and the area where the girls dance
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Flashdancers isn't a 60/40 club, though, is it? I think Flashdancers is legally "adult zoned".
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As the article said, the 60/40 rule was the result of earlier city ordinances which created a loophole regarding which businesses were considered to be Adult versus which were not. The legal interpretation was that any establishment which allocated at least 60% of its floor space to non-adult business pursuits was not legally an Adult business, thus not subject to the Adult business zoning laws. This allowed many NYC strip clubs to continue to operate outside of the legal Adult Business zones by clearing out 60% of their floor space and by 'compacting' the stage, customer area, VIP rooms, bar etc into the remaining 40%. Adult video stores did the same thing by filling 60% of their shelves with G rated videos. The NY appellate court just ruled that the 60/40 loophole no longer exists.
PEC, Hustler, and a group of other clubs on the far 'west side' near the site of the new sports stadium are essentially the only clubs in Manhattan which are operating in an approved Adult Business zone. With the striking down of the 60/40 loophole, all other clubs are now considered to be Adult Businesses subject to city/state laws regarding Adult Businesses i.e. they cannot be located within 500ft of a residence, church, school, or other public building. Trust me that there is NOWHERE in Manhattan which isn't within 500feet of something !
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Flashdancers isn't a 60/40 club, though, is it? I think Flashdancers is legally "adult zoned".
Considering they're on Broadway, I doubt it. Just because customers don't directly see the 60% of unused space doesn't mean that the empty space isn't there - perhaps on a different floor above or below, or beside or behind the club.
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Can the clubs fight this ruling? They've been fighting the licensing in SA and so far everything has been business as usual past the licensing deadline.
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This will take NY down a few notches of "best cities" because not as much money will be spent in there. Think about it, PEC has, I don't know.... 50 dancers? averaging, I don't know, $500+? Plus alcohol sales, vip charges, blah blah blah... That's an insane amount of money EVERY DAY! LOST!!
Oh well, God Bless America, right?
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Actually, PEC along with Hustler and Scores West and a handful of other clubs, are located in the Adult Business Zone on the far west side of Manhattan so they will not be affected. However, I'm sure that these properly zoned clubs will be inundated by the 'best of the best' dancers formerly working at Scores East, Flashdancers and other clubs which ARE affected. This may cause PEC, Hustler, Scores West etc. to hire some of these 'best of the best' girls and fire some of the girls already working in their club.
Another thought (which we may find out about tonight). As the appellate court has ruled that the 60/40 loophole will no longer fly legally, this leaves every dancer in every 60/40 club open to being busted on a charge of indecent exposure when they go in to work tonight and take their top off.
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Can the clubs fight this ruling? They've been fighting the licensing in SA and so far everything has been business as usual past the licensing deadline.
Technically, yes, clubowners could band together and file an appeal in the NY Supreme Court. However this won't happen overnight and could take years for a ruling. In the meantime the big question is whether or not a Supreme Court judge will issue a 'stay order' temporarily blocking the appellate court ruling pending appeal, or whether the appellate court's ruling will stand in the meantime. My guess, especially in light of the recent Terry Schiavo case, is that there won't be any stay order. If a stay order is issued, it would open up the NY Supreme Court to huge amounts of political criticism i.e. the courts wouldn't issue a stay order to keep Terry Schiavo alive but they will issue a stay order to let strippers keep grinding on customer's laps ! Of course 'Corporate Mayor' Michael Bloomberg is chopping at the bit to start closing down the Times Square area clubs so he can pitch more Corporate tourist investment to alleviate the city's budget deficit.
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Well, I suppose Scores should be happy that the money-leaking Westside location will finally pay off...I wonder if the new Ricks (formerly Legz Diamond's - or was it Bare Elegance) falls under the acceptable zoning requirements?
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Rick's is DEFINITELY legally adult zoned.
Melonie, I think if you look at the zoning map re Flashdancers, you'll be in for a surprise. Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the block its on was zoned adult, while blocks right near it (like where the old Legz Diamond used to be) weren't. Maybe they, um, knew somebody at the time.
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this is all politcal,Nyc is bidding on the the olympics.kinnda makes you thank.and what a suprise all the clubs that fall into the zone are on the west side,hey are'nt they building a stadium on the west side
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To be fair, the adult zones were established in 1995, long before that stadium proposal was even a gleam in (then private citizen) Bloomberg's eye. Anyway, does anybody know if the zoning proposals for the "new" west side would continue the adult zoning? I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't.
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Wow!! Atlanta here I come!:O :'(
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Gosh although i am not a fan of the city so much, it will suck for alot of dancers and club owners if this goes through.
Pamela
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Re: HUGE News about Manhattan Clubs
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Originally Posted by Rath
Melonie, I think if you look at the zoning map re Flashdancers, you'll be in for a surprise. Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the block its on was zoned adult, while blocks right near it (like where the old Legz Diamond used to be) weren't. Maybe they, um, knew somebody at the time.
I'll admit that such things are extremely possible - that owner's group could certainly afford some major league political contributions LOL. Do you have a link to the infamous NYC Adult Zoning map ?
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Here ya go (for the area that includes Flashdancers):
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/zone/map8c.pdf
The key is: if an area is zoned "C" (for commercial) or "M" (for manufacturing), it's "adult". If it's zoned "R" (for residential), it's not "adult". (They didn't set up new "adult" zones under the adult zoning regulations; they just limited adult businesses to areas zoned as commercial or manufacturing. The amendments to the ordinance that were just upheld -- and which we're all so upset about -- clarified the definition of "adult business".)
As you'll notice, the map is almost impossible to read. That's how come we lawyers get paid so much.
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OK Rath I see what you're saying about one particular block along Broadway. But I'll throw you another legal question. If all NYC strip clubs are now considered to be Adult Businesses (which was not the case under the 60/40 rule) what exempts them from NY state laws requiring 500ft distance between any Adult Business and a residence, church, school or public building ? You can't go 500 feet down Broadway without running into an apartment building !
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All this for the Olympics...which is surely going to be a complete fiasco logistically and financially for the city.
I have no problem with intelligent zoning, but this is absurd.
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Nothing new about New York cracking down on the strip business before the rest of the country:
"Somethin' Wrong With Strippin'?"
In the 1920s, the old burlesque circuits closed down, leaving individual theater owners to get by as best they could on their own. The strip tease was introduced as a desperate bid to offer something that vaudeville, film and radio could not.*
There are a dozen or more popular legends as to how the strip was born – telling how a dancer's shoulder strap broke, or some similar nonsense. In fact, it had been around since Little Egypt introduced the "hootchie-kooch" at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and had always remained a mainstay of stag parties. Burlesque promoters like the Minsky brothers took the strip tease out of the back rooms and put it onstage. While stripping drew in hoards of randy men, it also gave burlesque a sleazy reputation. As moralists once again expressed outrage, male audiences kept burlesque profitable through most of the Great Depression.
Strippers soon had to walk a fine line between titillation and propriety – going too far (let alone "all the way") could land them in jail for corrupting public morals. Some gave stripping an artistic twist and graduated to general stardom, including fan dancer Sally Rand and former vaudevillian Rose Lousie Hovick – better known as the comically intellectual Gypsy Rose Lee.*
The strippers soon dominated burlesque, and their routines became increasingly graphic. To avoid total nudity but still give the audience what it wanted, the ladies covered their groins with flimsy G-strings and used "pasties" to cover their nipples. This was usually enough to keep the cops at bay, even though pasties were far more vulgar that a plain naked breast.
Death Knells
Legal crackdowns began in the mid-1920s, including a now legendary raid on Minsky's in Manhattan. Burlesque managers relied on their lawyers, who kept coming up with legal loopholes for more than a decade. Reform-minded Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia closed New York's remaining burlesque houses in 1937, dismissing them as purveyors of "filth." He was not altogether wrong – by this time, most burlesque shows had degenerated into a series of bump and grind strip routines interrupted by lifeless comic bits.*Burlesque managers were so resilient that LaGuardia outlawed the use of the words "burlesque" or "Minsky" in public advertising!
Some sources praise the burlesque comics of the 1920s and 30s, but by this point, men went to burlesque shows to watch women strip -- period. The more the gals took off, the more the audiences liked it. At a time when fear of personal scandal and sexual disease were rampant, burlesque was a relatively safe source of titillation for married men and youngsters alike. The comedy was no longer a key attraction.
Without New York City, which had been the hub of burlesque's universe, the remaining promoters around the US presented increasingly tacky strip shows. The best burlesque comics segued into radio, film and television, taking many classic routines with them.*
By the 1960s, hard core pornography became readily available. Men no longer needed strippers to feed their fantasies. The few remaining burlesque shows were campy soft-porn, with even the strippers aiming for laughs ["yocks."] An article in Esquire (July 1964) describes how Blaze Starr played her strip for laughs. After one of her breasts "accidentally" bounced out of her costume –
Kinda sounds familiar huh?
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Frightening!They said in the news something about the city officials padlocking the club doors,is that what will actually happen?
What about the upstate clubs,like Lace in West Nyack?Or is this only affecting Manhattan?
Thanks!
PS Maybe time to try going out west again.
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Re: HUGE News about Manhattan Clubs
To the best of my knowledge, this only affects clubs within the New York City limits. This includes Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island. Remember that the bottom line here is that NYC passed an Adult Business zoning ordinance several years ago, and created 'legal' adult business zones. Some NYC clubs are in fact located in Adult Business Zones and are thus not affected by this court ruling at all. The clubs which ARE affected are those NYC clubs that were not located in a properly zoned area, those NYC clubs which were told they would have to close down or relocate several years ago, but who managed to employ a legal loophole of clearing 60% of their floor space and only using 40% of their building as the actual strip club thus avoiding being defined as an Adult Business and continuing to operate in their current locations. Yesterday's court ruling shot down the 60/40 loophole, thus these clubs ARE now considered to be Adult Businesses, or more specifically they are considered to be Adult Businesses operating illegally in an improperly zoned location.
Outside of NYC, the vast majority of clubs have been considered to be Adult Businesses all along. These upstate and Long Island clubs have already fought their own battles with local zoning and ordinances. Any clubs currently operating outside of NYC proper probably will not be directly affected by yesterday's court ruling. However, they may be indirectly affected if for example the Nyack city fathers use NYC's example of how to write Adult Business zoning ordinances without loopholes to tighten up their own local zoning requirements. This may also have an indirect effect on strip clubs throughout the area simply because of the large amount of publicity being generated, which serves as a reminder to registered voters that there are strip clubs in their smaller cities too.
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a temporary reprieve has been granted due to an appellate court judge agreeing to issue a 'stay order' regarding yesterday's court ruling.
as the article says, there is no way to know whether 'temporary' means 6 weeks or 6 years !