Nightlife

The county takes a pole position, plus an On the Rocks casting call

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Harold Pasion

The county takes a pole position: Clubs, mind your poles and queues!

Poles are for strippers, or so it seems now that a Clark County rep has confirmed that Department of Business License director Jacqueline Holloway is working to ban the use of stripper poles by nightclub guests. As a condition of approval for Privé’s temporary liquor license, an August 17 letter from Holloway mandated that the patrons be prohibited access to the club’s stripper poles. At the Commission meeting the following day, Holloway extended this regulation to all Las Vegas nightclubs.

“The director has determined that allowing customers to use dance poles implicitly encourages inappropriate and/or lewd behavior,” says public information officer Dan Kulin, “and so we are in the process of reviewing conditions to prohibit customers from using these poles.”

Kulin goes on to say that Holloway is not currently focusing on the details of the new regulation, and will likely turn her attentions to it when Privé’s liquor-license affairs have been sorted. Still not comfortable approving a 90-day temporary liquor license for Privé nightclub, the County Commission approved at that meeting a minor extension to the existing 30-day temporary license to accommodate attorney schedules. The matter will come before the Commission again on October 6.

DEEP THOUGHTS

By Jack Colton
"While mostly owned by men well into their fifties, many Las Vegas nightclubs are luring unsuspecting guests into their nest by claiming to be 23 year old girls on MySpace and Facebook. No word on whether or not Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC has gotten word of this."

Responding to an online discussion board convened on the matter, Weekly contributor Jack Colton commented, “I was very interested to hear that the commissioners are paying as much attention to this as they are because, as I’ve been sitting here racking my brain thinking, there really are only a very small handful of clubs that even have these poles accessible to customers. The vast majority don’t bother with them because they clutter the decor and are an insurance risk. I know Rok at NY-NY and JET at Mirage both have them, but they are each extremely vigilant in making sure that security watches everything that goes on up there.”

Speaking before the commission on August 18, Holloway expounded, “We’re trying to make some long-term changes in the nightclub industry on the whole … I’m going to be sending out a notice to the industry outlining some key conditions and key expectation for their management and operations … Many of the conditions that we’re setting forth for Privé … we’re also going to set forth to the industry.”

Among these conditions, there will be zero tolerance for the stalling of enforcement officers at the doors, clubs must make all books and records available to the County, and “Patrons shall have no access to the dance poles. If the dance poles are for the go-go dancers and entertainers, we don’t want to walk into any of these locations and see patrons on the dance pole.”

Colton continues, “If I were to make an educated guess as to why they are even bothering looking into this, it is probably because, prior to new management stepping in, Privé had that one table [Table 69] in the kitchen of their venue that had a stripper pole ... and I’m sure hearing that raised some eyebrows during those hearings even though 99 percent of people who stepped into the club didn’t even know that table existed, much less had any remote view of the pole. As I’m sure the commissioners aren’t big into the nightlife scene, they probably just assumed it’s a rampant problem.”

Until Holloway issues her list of “key conditions,” all pole-related questions remain suspended mid-air: What about contests like Pole-A-Palooza? Are go-go boxes next? Is this the start of a conservative Vegas nightlife regime?!? No, probably not. Likely, the overwhelming details and necessary exceptions will lead to a county-issued letter cautioning clubs—yet again—to simply mind their poles and queues.

Bartenders: Love On the Rocks?

LX.TV’s bartending battle On the Rocks: The Search for America’s Top Bartender will be in Las Vegas next week casting for Season 2 of the popular online show, this time making the leap to select NBC stations across the country. Casting events will be held in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas to find bartenders ready to convene in Sin City for the big showdown. And, of course, since reality requires a camera, the whole thing—laughter, tears, spills, thrills—will be taped. For your shot at stardom and $100,000, register at lxtv.com/ontherocks and bring your A-game to Shadow Bar at Caesars Palace on Tuesday, September 15. Three Las Vegans made it to the final 10 last season, with Stripsteak’s Amanda Gager taking the top honors; let’s hope Vegas can once again take all.

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