Dear Club Owner: A letter and story for the season PART 1
Tuesday, December 16, 2014 12:00 AM
Happy Holidays, fellow TUSCL members! It's the perfect time of year to create a wish list and talk about strip clubs past, so I figured I'd combine the two, though in two separate articles.
I'll start with another "dead" club history since it helps frame the 2015 wish list.
Separation of church, state and club
Sometimes being first isn't best (sorry, Ricky Bobby). Twenty years ago, west of the city of Akron, in a small town called Norton, a businessman opened one of the first strip clubs (a bikini bar) in the area. The Nest sat just off Route 216, a main thoroughfare, though it was also tucked away in a rural setting. The Nest had two floors of action, and was the first club in the area to offer a "shadowbox"--a large wooden box with an opaque screen of the front and sides and a light in the back. Dancers would slip into the box, strip off their bikinis and have their nude bodies projected on the screen. Pretty lame by today's standards, but since Ohio doesn't allow full nudity and alcohol in the same bar, it was an interesting solution.
The owner eventually decided full nude was the way to go. He stopped serving booze, imposed a cover charge, and the Nest became the area's first nude club. Business was already good, but once the ladies lost their clothes it absolutely boomed. The owner found ways to keep it booming. He ran ads in local papers, including my college newspaper, for specials such as college ID and senior citizen day (seriously). He also shuttled dancers from a nearby bikini bar he ran (Gene's Lounge) to attract his drinking customers to the Nest where they could see their favorite dancers fully nude.
With all this success came plenty of trouble. Norton hated the club from the moment it opened and constantly searched for ways to close it down. At one point, a nearby church got involved, claiming the Nest was too close and therefore in violation of local zoning codes. The owner was regularly in court and council meetings fighting these charges and others.
Eventually, the county prosecutor got involved, leading a raid of county and local officers who shut the club down as a public nuisance.
The Nest was a wild place, even too wild at times for me. All the extra service so prevalent in club's today were happening in every nook and cranny of the place. Interestingly, prostitution charges weren't part of the prosecutor's case. None of the dancers were even arrested or brought up on charges.
Instead, an undercover operation had found one customer and the club doorman (who had quit before the raid) were dealing drugs. The prosecutor mentioned that in her suit along with police reports filed on vehicle break-ins and vandalism in the Nest's parking lot.
The club called bullshit on all charges, noting that many other bars had issues with dealers and damaged vehicles. Those clubs weren't being closed. The Nest also claimed the county prosecutor's involvement was purely political since it was an election year and the prosecutor was in the fight of her political career against a popular city law director.
In the end, the Nest may have sunk any chance of winning this battle thanks to its own deteriorated state. The Nest made tons of money. Almost daily the club saw 500-600 customers pass through its doors, paying a $6 cover and another $4 for two cups of soda or water. The owner chose to pocket all that cash instead of maintaining the place. When the police later accompanied a health inspector to the premises they found a filthy, unsanitary bar full of broken chairs and tables and torn up bar stools. Private viewing booths the owner had installed just a year earlier were coated in dried up semen.
All this was covered in lurid detail (much more than here) in the local paper. That's all a judge and the public needed to know to shut the club's doors and stay away.
Epilogue
That was the end of the Nest. The owner decided to shift business out of Norton to a new nude club (a converted drive-thru) located next door to his bikini bar in a nearby town. Scared off by the raid that closed the Nest, customers stayed away in droves. Both these bars quickly fell into disrepair and shut down a few years later.
A decade after, the owner--by all accounts a decent man who was loved by his employees (he was just cheap)-- passed away. The Nest was sold and is now a thrift store. The other clubs were demolished and replaced with a car wash.
As for the county prosecutor who led the charge to close the Nest, she won reelection. Her career only trended upwards since. Today, she's the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. So there's that.
(See PART 2)
I'll start with another "dead" club history since it helps frame the 2015 wish list.
Separation of church, state and club
Sometimes being first isn't best (sorry, Ricky Bobby). Twenty years ago, west of the city of Akron, in a small town called Norton, a businessman opened one of the first strip clubs (a bikini bar) in the area. The Nest sat just off Route 216, a main thoroughfare, though it was also tucked away in a rural setting. The Nest had two floors of action, and was the first club in the area to offer a "shadowbox"--a large wooden box with an opaque screen of the front and sides and a light in the back. Dancers would slip into the box, strip off their bikinis and have their nude bodies projected on the screen. Pretty lame by today's standards, but since Ohio doesn't allow full nudity and alcohol in the same bar, it was an interesting solution.
The owner eventually decided full nude was the way to go. He stopped serving booze, imposed a cover charge, and the Nest became the area's first nude club. Business was already good, but once the ladies lost their clothes it absolutely boomed. The owner found ways to keep it booming. He ran ads in local papers, including my college newspaper, for specials such as college ID and senior citizen day (seriously). He also shuttled dancers from a nearby bikini bar he ran (Gene's Lounge) to attract his drinking customers to the Nest where they could see their favorite dancers fully nude.
With all this success came plenty of trouble. Norton hated the club from the moment it opened and constantly searched for ways to close it down. At one point, a nearby church got involved, claiming the Nest was too close and therefore in violation of local zoning codes. The owner was regularly in court and council meetings fighting these charges and others.
Eventually, the county prosecutor got involved, leading a raid of county and local officers who shut the club down as a public nuisance.
The Nest was a wild place, even too wild at times for me. All the extra service so prevalent in club's today were happening in every nook and cranny of the place. Interestingly, prostitution charges weren't part of the prosecutor's case. None of the dancers were even arrested or brought up on charges.
Instead, an undercover operation had found one customer and the club doorman (who had quit before the raid) were dealing drugs. The prosecutor mentioned that in her suit along with police reports filed on vehicle break-ins and vandalism in the Nest's parking lot.
The club called bullshit on all charges, noting that many other bars had issues with dealers and damaged vehicles. Those clubs weren't being closed. The Nest also claimed the county prosecutor's involvement was purely political since it was an election year and the prosecutor was in the fight of her political career against a popular city law director.
In the end, the Nest may have sunk any chance of winning this battle thanks to its own deteriorated state. The Nest made tons of money. Almost daily the club saw 500-600 customers pass through its doors, paying a $6 cover and another $4 for two cups of soda or water. The owner chose to pocket all that cash instead of maintaining the place. When the police later accompanied a health inspector to the premises they found a filthy, unsanitary bar full of broken chairs and tables and torn up bar stools. Private viewing booths the owner had installed just a year earlier were coated in dried up semen.
All this was covered in lurid detail (much more than here) in the local paper. That's all a judge and the public needed to know to shut the club's doors and stay away.
Epilogue
That was the end of the Nest. The owner decided to shift business out of Norton to a new nude club (a converted drive-thru) located next door to his bikini bar in a nearby town. Scared off by the raid that closed the Nest, customers stayed away in droves. Both these bars quickly fell into disrepair and shut down a few years later.
A decade after, the owner--by all accounts a decent man who was loved by his employees (he was just cheap)-- passed away. The Nest was sold and is now a thrift store. The other clubs were demolished and replaced with a car wash.
As for the county prosecutor who led the charge to close the Nest, she won reelection. Her career only trended upwards since. Today, she's the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. So there's that.
(See PART 2)
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