Strip club industry ‘dying' in Windsor

Just six parlours remain from high of 12


WINDSOR, Ont. -- Windsor's once-mighty strip-club industry is becoming skimpier.

Could Windsor be shedding its Sin City image?

“It's a dying business for various reasons,” said city solicitor George Wilkki, who is familiar with club licensing.

He argues that the border, the dollar and the Internet have cut into the sexy entertainment. “I don't know if there's any hope for it.”

In its heyday in 1985 — when the city put a moratorium on issuing more adult-entertainment licences in the city core — Windsor boasted as many as 12 strip parlours.

In that era, the notoriety of “the Windsor ballet” grew in Michigan, where dancers must wear G-strings. Licensed Ontario exotic dancers, however, can take it all off.

According to city clerk Valerie Critchley, over the last decade Windsor has typically had nine or 10 strip clubs. As recently as 2008, there were 10. In 2009, it dropped to nine, in 2010, eight, and now it has fallen to six: Cheetah's, Leopard's, Studio 4, Silver's, T-Zers, and Legends of 2012.

Some of the highest-profile clubs in the city core have closed in the last year or two: Jason's, Danny's and the Million Dollar Saloon.

The owner of the Million Dollar Saloon building donated the club's furniture to Habitat for Humanity last week, predicting that the venue's days as a strip club have ended.

And the former Jason's — once the starlet of local burlesque, after stepping into the spotlight in 1984 — opened briefly as the new Danny's all-male revue. Three weeks ago it became the Venue Rock Parlor, offering hard rock, not hard bodies.

“My partners and I didn't want to take on the strip club angle,” said George Marar, who along with partners Seth Perera and Scott Stevens replaced the former Jason's stage with a guitar-shaped dance floor. “But what we did want to do is kind of revitalize the rock 'n' roll industry,

“We wanted to attract a new market, so what you have to do is concentrate on throwing a good party.”

Yet while Windsor's strip-club party has petered out somewhat, the show is ready for a second act, according to Rob Katzman, who owns adult-entertainment emporiums in Windsor and the U.S.

“The adult-entertainment industry did, in fact, shrink,” said Katzman, who noted that his best year came in 1999. “It started in '07, because of all the same reasons the casino encountered: the changing dollar, the border, passports. It's fewer Americans. And also, the economic impact.

“So when the economy changed in Windsor, not only did we lose Americans, but we also lost Canadians. At one point we were down 24 per cent from the top revenue years in Windsor.”

The list of nudie bars which have come and gone in the city is lengthy. To name a few: Collars and Cuffs, The Beanery, the Latin Quarter, the Kilarney, The Riviera, Tricia's, the President's Club, the Sandhill, and the one that likely kicked off the naughtiness in Windsor, Tracy Starr's, which offered burlesque shows where condo high-rises now stand at Riverside and Goyeau.

But Katzman says his two current Windsor clubs, Cheetah's and Leopard's, are taking off again. Three weeks ago, they hosted six bachelor parties, all with American clientele, he said.

“We're seeing a real resurgence,” Katzman said. “Our numbers now are meeting 2005 revenue levels. And that has just started to happen in the last eight months.”

Katzman said more customers, Americans as well as Canadians, are starting to open their wallets for luxury entertainment. More of his entertainers hail from Europe these days, he now regularly welcomes female customers and he has tried successful special events such as alternative-lifestyle shows.

He feels so confident about Windsor's rebounding economy, in fact, he plans to open a new adult-entertainment venue — possibly called Roxie's — in the basement of the former Jason's. And he hopes to reopen Danny's at its original space at 1271 Riverside E., after what he calls the “hiccup” of moving it to the high-traffic downtown, where he discovered women felt uncomfortable walking into a male strip club.

Yet he knows a market still exists for sex appeal.

“I'm telling you, Windsor is coming into its own, I can smell it,” he said. “The wave is coming.

“This is the most excitement I've felt in a decade.”

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Coun. Alan Halberstadt noted that body-rub parlours have also diminished.

“I think Windsor's image is changing,” he said. “The smart city stuff is positive. The green industry stuff is positive.

“But we still have a long way to go. Our unemployment rate is still high, our vacancy rate is still high.”

Though Halberstadt likes the idea of fewer adult-entertainment venues, he doesn't want to see strip clubs simply close with nothing in their place.

“I guess the question is, what's going to replace these strip clubs?” he said. “At one point, Jason's was the strip club that made Windsor famous. Now it's gone.”

The moratorium on more adult-entertainment venues still exists on Windsor's books, so prospective club owners would have to apply to city council for the right to open a new saloon's doors.

Over the last decade, when an entrepreneur proposed turning the old Salvation Army building (now the St. Clair College MediaPlex) into a mega adult club, the plan was nixed. When another brought in a group of neighbours who supported his plan to open a strip bar on Sandwich Street, council gave the go-ahead to the President's Club, though it later burned down.

* * *

Windsor defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme built a mini-industry around defending adult-entertainment clubs. Starting in the early '80s, he went to trial 163 times for indecent theatrical performances and nudity in a public place, representing strip clubs in Windsor, London, Sarnia, Toronto and Ottawa.

He had to appeal a few convictions but, in the end, he won every single case — and helped pave the way for dancers in Canada to perform fully nude.

The legal battles came as the racy clubs revved up. In 1987, the Fifth Estate filmed a profile in Windsor called Tijuana North.

“At Jason's they would pull up in stretch limos,” said Ducharme, who considers his efforts a triumph for freedom of expression. “They would want to bring in parties of 50 people.

“In those days, the owners were carrying money out of there in wheelbarrows.”

Though the local scene has cooled off, Ducharme said, he still represents hot adult clubs in the Detroit area and elsewhere. He said Windsor's challenges stem from the border and the Canadian dollar, not from lack of interest.

“The reality is, it's not that these clubs are not popular,” he said. “These place are going to carry on and do well anywhere customers can go easily.”

* * *

What type of business does striptease represent for dancers today?

“It has been consistent since I started,” said Raven, 22, toned and statuesque in her high heels, who has worked at Cheetah's for two years and quit a full-time job to take to the stage.

“I was coming here when I was in school. I didn't think I would come back as much as I did, but I ended up making the move to do this full time.

“During wedding season, with the bachelor's parties, it's crazy. Then you think it's going to slow down but then something else is always going on.”

Her main goal from dancing: buying her own property, which she managed after just her first year.

“I can cover my mortgage, no problem, on an average night,” she said with a smile. “I do well.”

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