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Oversaturation

Muddy
USA
You ever wonder how some of these places with so many strip clubs makes do.

Portland metro- About 2.5 million with 51 strip clubs.

Tampa metro-About 3.2 million people with about 53 strip clubs

Houston metro- About 7.1 million with about 54 strip clubs

State of West Virginia with about 1.8 million people has about 21 strip clubs



all as opposed to a place like Nashville metro with 2 million people has 3 strip clubs or Washington state with 7.7 million people and 12 strip clubs.


My question is how do all these places stay in business? Are there really THAT many PL's? A place like Portland I could totally see how there would be a huge supply of stripper types but how many truly paying customers are there in a not really major city to go around? The math just doesn't work on all that.

21 comments

Latest

Jascoi
•
10 months ago
the town I live in Northwest Arizona HAD a strip club and it shut down. I got to drive to the Colorado River area north of I-40 to get to the ONE strip club in Northern Arizona. or I can drive an hour and a half and be in Vegas (but I've been there before and I tend to avoid it except) for an occasional visit to one particular strip club that is reasonably priced
Jascoi
•
10 months ago
I am honestly surprised that there ain't no strip club in Lake Havasu City. I think the population is 60 or 70,000 and there's lots of money there so why aren't the girls there shaking their asses every night makin money???
rockie
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10 months ago
Alcohol sales and a piece of the stated legal proclivities that they publicly sponsor. I certainly have pondered your question on a few stripclubs that are poorly run. That poorly run dive bars exist in excessive quantity everywhere (without a dance cut) usually ends my consideration of the topic.
shadowcat
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10 months ago
or Cincinnati 2+ million and no clubs. It's probably politics.
Dolfan
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10 months ago
It probably depends on the area. A place like Tampa has lots of tourism, there's certainly some regular locals but a large chunk is tourists. Houston I think gets a fair amount of tourist traffic too, but I'm not sure. I really can't even speculate on the Portland area. If it's not tourists, I'd guess a decent number of those strip clubs are as much just local bars as they are titty bars. South Florida had a decent share of those type of places. And/or a fair amount of them could be small. Or not making any money, perhaps surviving as money laundering fronts or making just enough to get by.

Around here, the limiting factor seems to be more the number of places they'll issue permits to rather than the number of customers and dancers to go around.
shailynn
•
10 months ago
I’ve wondered this too, and in some smaller cities that have an unusual amount of strip clubs I’ve observed that sometimes these clubs are just bars with a stage and a stripper pole.

I’ve gone into many hole in the wall type places all over the country and the guys are there just to drink, could care less about the strippers. My theory is if a bar is a strip club it keeps the guys wives/girlfriends out, one of the few places these guys can go and get away from their significant other even though they could care less about the strippers.

motorhead
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10 months ago
Years ago, I believe I created a thread on this very topic. (If we still had a search feature perhaps I could find it 😊).

I think I got laughed off the page because the thought of “too many strip clubs” is an anathema to most TUSCLers.

I believe I may have cited Flint Michigan as an example. Not that you could PAY ME to go to a Flint SC, but a city of just 80,000 people at one time had maybe 7 or 8 clubs.
JamesSD
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10 months ago
My understanding is the amount of red tape to open a strip club in Portland is about the same a coffee shop. So they have a lot more tiny clubs with only a couple dancers.

Tampa has retirees.

Houston has the oil industry which brings in dudes with money to burn and no women.
shailynn
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10 months ago
^^^ oh great point - industry has something to do with it. A decade ago where I live fracking was big and my town was overrun by huge pickup trucks most of which had Texas and Oklahoma plates. At that point there were (I think) 6 strip clubs with in a 15 mile radius and they all were horrible but had business. Fracking is long gone and today not one single club is still here. All of them shut down long before COVID came too.
funonthaside
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10 months ago
^ similar to the brothels of the Gold Rush days
whodey
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10 months ago
"or Cincinnati 2+ million and no clubs. It's probably politics." Cincinnati used to have a few strip clubs but Jerry Falwell and his fellow Bible thumper ran them out of business around the same time they were going after Larry Flint and Hustler.

There are a few strip clubs left in the Cincinnati metro area but they are across the state lines into either Northern Kentucky or Southeast Indiana. A couple of the NKY ones (Brass Ass and Brass Bull) are less than half of a mile from the downtown Cincinnati Riverfront in Newport Kentucky.
ArtCollege
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10 months ago
Portland: the Oregon constitution protects expression, which our Supreme Court says includes dancing. Nude dancing has been allowed for many years, even with alcohol served. Portland police have never (in my 30+ years here) made a priority of looking for acts of prostitution. The liquor control commission does look for evidence of prostitution, because they think it's their job to bother every booze-serving establishment. So they have pressured a number of clubs into installing cameras.

Portlanders who do not visit strip clubs still brag about having the most strip clubs per capita. It's a sign of a liberal city. The post-pandemic problems (crime, homelessness, etc.) have not changed things; we were this way back in the 2010s.

Lesson: it's all politics.
mike710
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10 months ago
From what I've seen of liberals, they're probably jacking off together on Zoom calls to the videos from the clubs.
Brahma2k
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10 months ago
Some of these metros are under-SC-represented likely due to politics and regulations that in a passive aggressive way make it impossible to open a SC.

LOL, Tampa doesn’t have retirees flooding through clubs to keep them in business. Naked or partially naked attractive women in a relatively clean setting will attract plenty of customers. Call it 1 per 100,000 population approximately. If a metro doesn’t have this ratio, there is something else keeping the number down.
DandyDan
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10 months ago
One thing about Tampa that a friend of mine would point out is they have an Air Force base there (Macdill AFB) and they probably get a few people from there. He himself was enlisted Air Force and he always tries to make me feel guilty about never seeing him there because of the strip clubs there.
Manuellabore
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10 months ago
Boston is a large city that is vastly underserved with only two SCs (that I know of) in the city limits and relatively few in the immediate environs, and even some of those are pretty far away.
Providence arguably evens things out a bit if you lump it in as part of Metro Boston, because Providence has a lot of clubs for a city of its size (Providence should have only 1.8 clubs using the 1:100K ratio mentioned above), but I don't know if Massholes (I use that term affectionately) think that way. I do know that, if I have to go to Boston on business, my ass is headed to Providence for fun.
chiefwiggum
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10 months ago
In terms of how many per population, I agree that the most significant factor is politics. Maybe places like Chicago or other areas large or small known for graft, money makes the permits go better, but largely, I think it's just zoning and alcohol laws.

As to how many stay open, that's easy, it's PLs and liquor. If an area has a lot of business/tourism, the more likely you would see strip clubs, save for politics. Many clubs have a house fee before a girl can even get on stage. I don't drink a lot, and if I'm having a good time, I average $300, more if I won gambling or I'm getting extras. I'm far from the whales that I see. Last time I was in Houston, dudes were throwing 100s at a time. Also, except for the house, this money is tax free (largely).
ilbbaicnl
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10 months ago
I would guess it depends on who owns the local news outlets, whether they play up stripping-related crime relative to similar crimes in the area. If a place has some bad club owners, with bad security, who don't care about strippers being assaulted, pimped or ODing, that's likely to lead to a clampdown on all clubs or proposed clubs.
WiseToo
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10 months ago
A lot of these clubs may be under the same ownership so they can have a monopoly in a certain area and keep competition out. With economies of scale, they probably can operate two clubs cheaper than two individually owned clubs. West Virginia is a good example. There are at least 6 clubs, some with different names, under the same ownership which share the same website. I think Seattle is similar. Several clubs under the same ownership.
CarlitosPeligro
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10 months ago
I’m always amazed there isn’t a a better scene in San Jose CA. There’s so many tech workers - male oriented industry - with money - many socially awkward - and business travelers - and lonely expats. Seems like a good market. Isnt California supposed to be “liberal”? News flash, CA’s not liberal in that way or at least not liberal everywhere.
CarlitosPeligro
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10 months ago
Always disappointed by Seattle too. Seems it should be more happening than it is.
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