A Pastor wants to spend almost $800,000 "washing away" the sins of a West Virginia strip club and transform it into a church.
Come and wash away your sins from the night before. A West Virginia preacher wants to turn a strip club into a house of worship. They'll get rid of the garter belts for a different type of collection basket.
Pastor Art Hage is trying to raise the $795,000 to buy the Pink Pony and transform it. "It has such a bad reputation and we feel like we could make it good," Hage told the Charleston Gazette. The former strip club that was caught up in controversy after Powerball millionaire Jack Whittaker was drugged and robbed there in 2003. The crime led to the loss of the club's liquor license.
The Pink Pony has been up for sale for more than a year.
The preacher at the Bible Church & Ministries in Hurricane, tells the Charleston Daily Mail, he wants to turn the Pink Pony into a church and a rehabilitation center to help those with drug, alcohol and gambling problems.
The pastor said he hopes to attract those who used to frequent the club.
"People will come, people are hurting," he said. "That's why they go to places like that. They're hurting, they want help, they want someone to help them. They're looking for answers," he tells the Mail.
Would you go to a church that used to be a strip club?
Viewers serve up their thoughts:
Gio writes on Facebook: well it IS prove of Jesus word..he can turn anything around for the best...
I'm not sure I agree with the minister's assertion that "people are hurting, that's why they go to places like that"...maybe if they hadn't busted a nut in a couple of weeks....
Anyway, a few years ago, I went to a birthday celebration for the husband of one of my wife's friends. It was held at a restaurant in a building that had housed my fav strip club many years earlier. As luck would have it we were seated at a table - and I was seated in a chair - that occupied almost exactly the same place in universe as I had occupied in the VIP many years before. The waiter came around and asked who wanted to see a menu - I almost said "no thanks, I pretty much know".