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Thread: question for industry pros only

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    Default question for industry pros only

    I wanted to know what kind of involvement organized crime has in the ownership of clubs. I would like to buy a club, but before I do, I need to know if it's possible to not get involved with that element-any help from dancers or club owners/managers would be great
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Unless you are backed by a large corporation (DeJaVu, Spearmint Rhino) or part of a smaller chain (Christie's, Delilah's) it's next to impossible to get a club up and going in a large city. If not for the organized competition, but for the legislative hurdle of zoning permits. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. Christie's failed to get a liquor license for it's new club in Tempe.

    I've never worked in a smaller rural area, so I can't comment there.
    Rebecca Avalon







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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Unless you are backed by a large corporation (DeJaVu, Spearmint Rhino) or part of a smaller chain (Christie's, Delilah's) it's next to impossible to get a club up and going in a large city. If not for the organized competition, but for the legislative hurdle of zoning permits. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. Christie's failed to get a liquor license for it's new club in Tempe.

    I've never worked in a smaller rural area, so I can't comment there.
    what about buying an existing club?that's what I meant-not starting from scratch
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Cant speak for the rest of the country, but here in NJ just about all clubs are somehow involved with organized crime whether they want to admit it or not. If you somehow do manage to open up a club, you will have to answer to a "higher" authority whether it is to buy their products, or to employ their dancers (the russian mob is good for that). Anyhow, I doubt you would be happy owning a place!

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    LOL...this is so true, yet so sad. I think in areas other than the northeast, you'd have a better shot at it. But most clubs that are already in existence with any kind of following are going to have the chains eyeing them as well. The legit businessmen can certainly be just as cut throat as any "mafia"....just my two cents.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    In medium to smaller towns a club can be bought and run without mob interference. some of them do fairly well in states like Montana, South and North Dakota and parts of Iowa.

    There is a club for sale called Swedes in Lesterville SD, which is near Yankton and about 60 miles SW of Sioux Falls. the lady is sick who owns it. Guys like it because they get good contact dances and the overhead is low, so it could prove to be quite profitable.

    Some owners run these clubs hands on 6 nights a week and others have other things going and only pop in periodically during the week.

    You still will have legal hassles anywhere you go in business some areas more than others, but a hands on owner could make some money in the areas I mentioned without much worry of the mob.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    In medium to smaller towns a club can be bought and run without mob interference. some of them do fairly well in states like Montana, South and North Dakota and parts of Iowa.

    There is a club for sale called Swedes in Lesterville SD, which is near Yankton and about 60 miles SW of Sioux Falls. the lady is sick who owns it. Guys like it because they get good contact dances and the overhead is low, so it could prove to be quite profitable.

    Some owners run these clubs hands on 6 nights a week and others have other things going and only pop in periodically during the week.

    You still will have legal hassles anywhere you go in business some areas more than others, but a hands on owner could make some money in the areas I mentioned without much worry of the mob.
    what would you guess about buying an existing club in vegas?organized crime an issue or not?
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    it's definitely a MAJOR consideration in the NorthEast. It's particularly dominant in the TriState area, as well as in most other very large cities down the east coast.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Anabolic, you already know the answer to that one.

    Even in Phoenix many of the clubs have mob connections. That was exposed when a club was trying to get a liquor license in someone elses name. About 11 clubs were tied to this questionable individual.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    In Louisville, KY there are two big chain clubs, PTs and Deja Vu with major money. The rest of the clubs are local or small chains. No real mob involvement. Indianpolis has only one chain club, PTs. Otherwise the clubs are locally owned. No mob involvement that I am aware of.

  11. #11
    Pamela
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    My guess is that less than alot think. Mafia does not have many strip clubs. Why now? They have moved on to where the money is.
    Upscale organized prostitution, drug smugling, and of course hit men. They have tons of money, the clubs don't cater to what they want. That is my belief. maybe years ago, now they moved on. More money involved in "fixing" horse racing, etc. Major $$$
    I am sure a few still have clubs.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    The type of club you as an individual would be able to buy in a city like Las Vegas or any major metro area would be one which has poor business.

    The club I mentioned which is for sale and others in the area have little competition and low overhead. A functional profit could be made here as guys have little to do and there would be less hassles. You could run 1/2 full during the week and almost full on many weekends which you would RARELY be able to do in a neighborhood Vegas or mom and pop club that you could buy in a big city that has large clubs dominating the market.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    The type of club you as an individual would be able to buy in a city like Las Vegas or any major metro area would be one which has poor business.

    The club I mentioned which is for sale and others in the area have little competition and low overhead. A functional profit could be made here as guys have little to do and there would be less hassles. You could run 1/2 full during the week and almost full on many weekends which you would RARELY be able to do in a neighborhood Vegas or mom and pop club that you could buy in a big city that has large clubs dominating the market.
    tina-thanks for the help-I will only live in a hot climate, so that narrows my business possibilities to vegas, arizona,south fla-and I prefer Vegas now-I know 1 club here is for sale, I just don't know exactly which 1 yet-I will find out
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Pamela, FYI, the mob doesnt use strip clubs for profit. They use it to launder their money from their other businesses. They can care less how the club is doing, as long as they have a safe haven to stash their money someplace.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Also, not to beat a dead horse on the same topic, from my dealings with these places for the past 16 years, at least up here in nj, not sure of the rest of the country, but whoever you think the owner of the club is, the odds are that isnt the real owner. That is especially the case for the small and medium size clubs. You have a group of 3 guys that say they are the owners cuz their names are on the liquor license. But remember, the mob guys normally cannot get a liquor license so they have these other guys say they are the owners. And as far as the "so-called" big chains, as much as nobody wants to believe it, they are under the influence as well! The Lace/Stiletto chain up here is very much so and if i were to bet some money, id say the Delilahs chains are too. These are the "unwritten" facts! Melonie knows!

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    "Melonie knows"

    You got that right! She will be the one to deal with the heavies in our soon-to-be-opening StripperWeb club. If she can't out-negotiate the swine, she'll just armlock 'em out the door like she did the groper that night. OK, just kidding...

    The "mob" now could describe a lot of different less-than-legal organizations. Actual Mafia involvement may be less than what it was back in the day, but now you have the Russian Mob, who are involved in a couple clubs I know of (and I'm not any kind of insider to the criminal world) in Central Florida. These guys have a reputation for being a lot more unpleasant than Marlon Brando if things get out of hand. There are other disagreeable entities out there that must nonetheless be agreed with one way or another, as well...

    Two of the four clubs I have worked in have in fact been tax shelters, one of which was a good-sized club. The organization behind the individual, who really was the owner but had connections I don't ever want to know the exact nature of, is a major motorcycle gang here in the Southeast, at least--NOT the Outlaws. It didn't take me long to figure that out even before it was confirmed in various ways.

    Neither of these clubs ever spent ONE DIME on advertising, and one of them was big enough and nice enough, inside and out, so that the discrepancy was something anyone might wonder about. But the clincher, for me, was that both these clubs had the most incompetent, whacked-out wierdos you can imagine as managers. One of them was under investigation for running a prostitution ring in the city he had worked in before. Shortly after I started in the second of these clubs the owner came in for a visit on a Friday. I hadn't been there that long, so the place was DEAD, especially for a friday night.

    I was mortified, and expected to be fired that night, new or not. If it had been my club, I would have fired EVERYONE, and started from scratch. After he left it did pick up, but I needn't have worried, he didn't give a rat's ass how busy it was whenever he came in. I saw him in there during some really wild nights, and expected him to praise me or smile at least when I said hello, because it was so obvious how well I was doing with the place. No such luck. He was probably annoyed...

    Then you have all kinds of local shady characters. Wherever you go, even in such a relatively civilized nation as the U.S. of A., you are going to have mayors, city councilmen, inspectors of all kinds, judges, police chiefs, etc., who are going to make "arrangements" that you & I are never supposed to find out about, because they can.

    It would be my guess that the owner of a strip club almost anywhere in the country will have to come to terms with SOMEONE, somehow, outside the law, even if it's merely giving somebody free drinks and a lap dance when he comes in on his night off, for his consideration.

    Djoser



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  17. #17
    Pamela
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Agreed,
    Back in the day yes i could understand why mob connections would be a big part of strip clubs, as a front yes. Also being fashionably known. Who cared no one messed with them.
    Sure some clubs have promoters instead of actual "owners", fine. But you can always finds out who "is in charge, ie. owner of the establishment.
    Mob connections have moved on for the most part to greener pastures...Italian restaurants for one. They open up adult book stores! But the connection for the most part has been broken with alot of clubs being run by mafia. Now not all, however connections are down.
    It made sense to them, lower profile, because they where known for activity invloved with strip clubs.
    Not to say some still don't. But there are much better, cleaner operations to open up, do your jobs and keep a low profile. They are not imortal, and do get busted, still. They like the scene, sure. But they are not ignorant.
    Thats my point, Pamela

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    if you're going to quote me, for the record ...

    "to the best of my knowledge there is absolutely no involvement by organized crime in the exotic dancing industry in the Tri state area - I have never witnessed an incident in a dance club which was in any way associated with organized crime figures or activities - I have never met a dance club owner/manager/bouncer who exhibited any traits associated with the media image of organized crime members "

    hey, I gotta work in these clubs !!!!!

  19. #19
    Pamela
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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Sure hope your not typing this message to me, i did not quote anyone. Just what i have learned in my years of dancing. True, maybe not. And if i knew of any "mob" connections anyway. I am not saying anything.
    That being said. I don't.
    Pamela

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Anabolic, maybe you could be the "front" person the underworld owners "use" to run their establishment.

    The area you want to do business in will force you out of business. Work the areas I mentioned to you from May- October, and hire a manager of your own to run it in the colder season.

    Even in Henderson NV, Centerfolds and What's Up are getting heat. If the clubs change hands the city wants to eliminate dancing in them.

    I'm a glass half full type of person, but I see the type of business these places do and you're fighting a good money after bad battle in the deserts and the swamps.

    My fiancee grew up in Arizona and is familiar with Vegas as well. I can't think of one club there that would be worth your investment.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    If you get right down to cold hard finances, there are only two types of clubs which are making serious money today. I'm talking from a point of view of the clubowners now, with no necessary correlation to the earnings potential of dancers who work in these clubs.

    #1 "corporate clubs" with several locations within a given area - this allows management to spread the 'behind the scenes" costs such as legal defense, lobbying against ordinances, payola to local law enforcement, as well as more mundane costs such as alcohol/drink supplies, over a much larger customer base.

    #2 "super show clubs" in a handful of very large cities, which can tap into the upscale/business customer market almost exclusively. Rather than depending on a large customer base to absorb expenses (i.e. quantity), the super show clubs depend on very high prices resulting in very high average spending per customer (i.e. quality) to provide their profit margin.

    Clubs that don't fall into these two categories CAN be profitable - provided that they aren't faced with serious "behind the scenes" expenses like legal defense or appealing ordinances or major payola in order to keep the doors open, and provided they aren't also faced with head to head or knife in the back competition with other clubs. There ARE still opportunities to buy into or start such clubs, but these opportunities generally lie in out-of-the-way locations - since the big cities are already "staked out" by clubs falling into the two categories. The risk factor is that it's very possible that a potential clubowner can make a substantial investment in such a profitable independent club in an out-of-the-way location, only to see local politicians retaliate almost immediately with new ordinances and other hassles which create enough "behind the scenes" expenses to bankrupt the club.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Melonie, I notice that where I'm working now in the Dakota's and Montana. Clubs stay fairly low key and lots of them don't even have Gentlemen's club in their mame.

    I often feel that if thes clubs would erect professionally done billboards on both directions of the interstate such as they have in Houston, Dallas, and LA, that they could attract more customers but these areas probably don't want the sex industry to be so visible in their towns. Some of these owners have small billboards that if you blink you could miss.

    Word of mouth gives them decent business, but if the cities wage a legal vendetta against them all could be lost.

    This is just an iffy business in our still prudish society.

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    Default Re: question for industry pros only

    Tina, I have observed the same phenomena in regard to the continuing success of low profile zero advertising clubs in today's conservative environment. To me it seems that anything which clubowners do, or for that matter anything that dancers do, which results in increased publicity about exotic dancing in general or one club in particular always results in a conservative backlash of some sort. Whether that conservative backlash is as limited as scaring potential customers away because of the publicity, or as far-reaching as prompting city fathers to enact new anti-dance club ordinances and sic the local cops on clubs, it's always negative in regard to club business and dancer's earning potential.

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