Made another trip to Ken's the...

Made another trip to Ken's the first of the week and it was dead! There were several girls working but neither the dancers nor the crowd were very enthusiastic. I talked to several girls that I have gotten to know quite well and all said that the new law is going into effect and that this Saturday will be the last night for things as they have been in the past. We took an informal count and of the girls I talked to only two plan on getting their license and working in Nashville at least part time, but they were both planning on spending most of their time dancing in other cities and just dropping in at Ken's one or at most two days a week. They both planned on spending their weekends dancing where they could make enough money to carry them through the week. They knew of two that had already gotten their licenses and who plan on doing the same thing. All four of these girls are nice girls, but none are among the top dancers at Ken's. All of the top dancer's that I talked to have already made plans to quit before the end of the week.

On a positive note there were at least 6 new girls the night I was there and two of them had definite potential. I talked to one of these girls and she while she had already gotten her license she was unaware that this was a sign of impending changes and thought that this was standard procedure. This is the first club she has danced at and chose to dance in Nashville because she heard that all the clubs were hiring and that there wasn't a lot of competition. She didn't realize this was because so many of the top dances have either already left or are planning to leave. She is a student at WKU and said that if the new law kills the crowds they way many expect she may decide to dance in Kentucky instead. I didn't get to talk to the other hot new girl but was told that she knew about the changes and wasn't worried because the club she had previously danced at worked under similar rules so she knew what to expect.

One of my old favorites who has been spending a lot of time dancing in other cities the last few months was back at Ken's and she said that she has spent a lot of time in Memphis and that they have similar restrictions there. This was news to me since I have always heard that the clubs in Memphis were wide open. She said that was pretty much the case. She said that the new rules are city ordinances and that if you are caught in violation you are issued a citation but that the rules are rarely enforced and the girls consider the fines as part of the cost of doing business. She said that once she found that out she figured that Nashville would probably follow a similar path and that after the initial inspections took place the clubs and the dancers would relax and take their chances. I hope she is right! I told her I would be out of town until after the first of the year so she is going to call me and let me know how things are going. If I hear anything I'll post a note in the chat section.