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Annoying Strip Club Practices ... Part 4: Strip Clubs that Close Without Notice!

Club_Goer_Seattle

Seattle, Washington

(Or with very little notice) It's only happened to me twice, that a favorite strip club of mine closed and did so suddenly without any notice—not to anyone, especially the club's employees. My first experience with this was when in lived in L.A. The (then) Sahara Theater in the city of Industry closed, without notice one night in 2004. I happened to be there that night and was surprised as anyone when I later heard about it. It was a Saturday night. I left a couple of hours before the club closed. I was told that anyone who worked the night shift that night experienced a normal night. Nothing seemed unusual as they finished their shifts, and went home. However, those that came to work for the day shift the next day, were greeted with locked doors, and a handwritten sign on the front door that read, “Sahara is now closed. Visit us at our Anaheim location” (a 30 to 45-min. drive). It turns out that there was a landlord/tenant dispute, and the landlord didn't want to continue to rent to that tenant. Obviously, the landlord did not object to a strip club as a tenant, since he rented it later that year to Déjà Vu which has been there ever since.

My next experience was here in the Puget Sound region. Sugar's, a club in Shoreline, WA, that I used to go to among a few different clubs, was given at least a half hour's notice. The owner called the club manager at 1:30 a.m. in July 2009 and said to tell everyone that the club is closing tonight. This club was one of four owned by a partnership. The other three clubs would be forced to close on the same day by legal action, 10 months later. However, when the last three clubs closed, that made headlines and about 10 days advance notice was given through the media of the agreed-to closing date. I wonder if that partnership would have given any advance notice, had it not been for the media coverage?

It's been my feeling that club owners are generally greedy. They gouge and abuse both customers and employees for profit. At the largest of the four Puget Sound clubs that closed, I know that there were approximately 150 dancers, and perhaps 15 other employees. Putting that many employees “on the street,” suddenly, should be a crime. But, of course, if strip club owners gave advance notice, they'd loose money.

What's been your experience with this?