HOUSTON, Jun 10, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Rick's Cabaret International, Inc. (RICK 8.75, +0.63, +7.76%) , the nation's premier group of upscale gentlemen's clubs, reported sales of $6.7 million for its adult nightclubs in May.
The overall gross revenue decline from the $7.2 million reported in May 2009 was chiefly due to lower sales at the company's Rick's Cabaret in Las Vegas, where sales dropped from nearly $1.6 million in 2009 to about $635,000 because the company stopped paying extraordinarily high taxi cab-related marketing costs.
"The Las Vegas sales were lower, but the net impact on the company is minimal because we achieved our revenues with much lower marketing cost," said Eric Langan, President and CEO of Rick's Cabaret. "We are monitoring the taxi cab marketing costs closely."
Among its clubs showing year-over-year sales increases in May, the company cited strong performances from Rick's Cabaret in New York City, the XTC Cabaret locations in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, and from Club Onyx in Dallas.
If Las Vegas is removed from the calculation, overall same club sales for May compared with 2009 showed a 3.3 percent decline.
Sam, I've been to the Vegas Rick's (back in January.) It was slooow there then. For them to be blaming a one million dollar shortfall on not paying taxi kickbacks is astounding!
While many things are not great now, comparisons to '09 numbers for most of Wall St. are pretty easy beats.
Worse, how could someone in the nightclub biz, with one of the fanciest spots in Vegas, put out something with "If Las Vegas is removed"?!? Arguably, Vegas should be the big producer for the company. That said, I hope their CEO unloaded some stock a couple of months back when the price was $15+. It's almost 50% lower now...