I have been visiting strip clubs in the Houston Area for over 15 years now and have really noticed signifigant changes from the "Old School" way of doing things in all aspects of the business.
The first club I ever went to was called "Cutter Bill's" it was located on Westheimer where Treasures is currently in business. I remember that the girls were extremely attractive and dressed in elegant manner (well as elegant as you can get in a strip club.) I soon branched out and would go to the Men's Club, Rick's (Galleria), St, James, The Trophy Club, and Heartbreakers in Dickinson to name a few. It seemed that gowns were pretty much the norm back then and the quality of the women appeared to be much higher than it is today. The gowns left much more to the imagination and to see the entire package you had to either get a dance or wait for the dancer to go on stage. Some dancers did wear short dresses, but this was the exception and not the norm.
I was a little more naive about the business back then, but it seems that even though you knew extra's occured in the clubs, it appeared to be on rare occasions and only with certain dancers. The ones that did play seemed to take it outside of the club vs. the onsite activities that occur in the open today. Management seemed to keep a much closer eye on the activities in the club and I even saw them talk to the girls about doing things like a but grind, which really seems lame in comparison to what occurs in the club today. The dancer's even seemed to police each other in an effort to keep things semi-clean.
In the late 90's in a effort to "clean up" the strip clubs the City Council adopted a new SOB Ordinance that changed the way Houston Strip Club's would operate.Link to Houston Laws
One of the key provisions was that dancers were not allowed to come in contact with a customer and were supposed to remain at least 3 feet away at all times. Thus the creation of the infamous "Air Dance."
A second key provision was the licensing of manager's and dancer's. This was done through HPD Vice and becomes a permanant public record. Additionaly, due to provisions in the new law, many dancers and managers with prior criminal convictions were unable to be licensed and effectively at the time were unable to be employed at a SOB in the City limits.
A combination of of the dancer's not wanting a permanant public record of being a dancer (Think about background checks for future employer's), the 3 foot rule, and criminal backgrounds combined with huge media coverage of the new law caused many dancer's to go to club's in unincorporated areas of the county that did not have strict ordinances and to club's in other areas. I remember Heartbreaker's in Dickinson having well over 300 dancer's at one time. For the size of the club at the time this was simply a huge number of entertainer's.
Where the dancer's go, the customers will follow. The business in the club's outside of the city limit's exploded and club's in the city were slow at best. It is my opinion that the girl's that stayed at the club's in the city began to allow many more extracuricular activities in order to keep the remaining customer's in the club's. The limited enforcement of the club's by Vice and the legal battle with the club owners and the city over the new law's allowed the Extra's mentality to become ingrained in the Houston club's. As things began to calm down and dancer's began to return to the club's in the city limit's there was a realization that they had to compete with the girls doing extra's. Many of the customers when faced with spending a hundred dollars and getting 5 reasonably clean lap dances or getting a blow job in the club chose the latter option. Many of these girls quickly became extra's girls in a effort to compete and keep the income level they had become used to or almost addicted to. As the older dancer's began to retire and a new crop of girl's began working in the club's, the extra's mentality gained a stronger foothold. The newer dancer's had seen no other way of doing business.
The law's have appeared to have a totally opposite effect than what was intended and again, in my opinion, appear to be the root cause of what the Houston Club's are today. It is a buyer's market out there and everything is on the menu. Good, bad, or ugly, this is what we have today. I even saw a dancer the other night having sex on the main floor of the club in the open. All created by a government attempting to legislate morality.



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