THE INTERSECTION: What comes next

Tommy Rocker ponders the eternal question: To strip or not to strip

Joshua Longobardy

That is, would you, while retaining your character, revolutionize your appearance, perhaps even what you do? In the next couple of weeks, Tommy Greenough—better known as Tommy Rocker, a born musician who came to Las Vegas in the mid-'80s, got into the bar business in '89, and six years later opened up a cantina bearing his stage name on old Industrial Road—will make that decision for his cantina, and in any event it will be an historical choice. Not just for himself, but also for the countless locals who've indulged in the decade-long string of festive nights by which that tavern rose to local glory.

But those high times have passed. Tommy Rocker, a member of the board of directors for the tavern owners' association, says he noticed the first significant decline in business when federal law dropped the blood alcohol content limit for drunk driving to .08. Locals began choosing bars closer to home. And as with the other small taverns in Nevada, he says, the indoor smoking ban approved last November will damage to his business' life source, its gamers. "They'll all just go to the casinos," he says.

As for now, he's not sure what he's going to do. But he is leaning toward a change. And for very good reason: His tavern stands on a prime location in an efflorescent city, he has a gaming and a liquor license, and Tommy Rocker's connections extend both high and low in this town. What might you do in that position?

Tommy Rocker is thinking strip club. It's an alluring thought: a house of untrammeled delight, absolved from the state's new smoking ban and visible from the I-15 freeway, just off the Flamingo exit, in the midst of Las Vegas' nexus of raw sexual energy and money, hundreds of millions of dollars a year by most accounts.

He has spent the last nine months floating about adult cabarets in town, observing the fantastical business in action, interviewing the people who make it work, taking notes on everything from design to organization to the interaction between patrons and employees, subscribing to trade magazines and no doubt taking ebullient pleasure throughout all of his "research and development."

"Strip clubs are such a lucrative business, significantly more than taverns," says Tommy Rocker. "They are an important part of [Las Vegas'] economy, and who we are."

It's true. Sex sells, and no city in America is as wild and insatiable as Las Vegas. Former Cheetah's owner Michael Galardi has claimed in court that his club made him more than $6 million a year in personal income, $14 million in alcohol profits, at least $2 million in dancer fees. It's been reported that the Crazy Horse Too gentleman's club, its prolific years past, still rakes in $10 million a year in profits. And according to insider estimates, the Spearmint Rhino earns more than either of those two competitors.

But perhaps the market here for that business is already deluged? There are 30 strip clubs in the Las Vegas Valley, and many of the recent arrivals have almost sunk, or are in the throes of drowning. Would you take the risk?

Pete Eliades, owner of Olympic Garden, which, according to Vegas.com, set the modern standard for strip clubs in town, says that running a cabaret isn't easy, and we all know what he means: The scrutiny adult entertainment draws from local government is much more severe than that for other businesses, and the competition to succeed is ruthless.

During the past three years, Jaguars has perished and others have struggled or leaned on after-hours nightclub legs for support. Establishments like those, however, appear to carry with them the seed of their own doom, Tommy Rocker says. They modeled themselves after the extravagant and expensive nightclub paradigm, accruing a mountainous debt service before the doors to the club even opened. On the other hand, he says, clubs like Spearmint Rhino, which he deems the height of customer service, focus on treating their customers like rock stars, and they thrive.

Let's now say you were Tommy Rocker, and so you already have the rock 'n' roll part down, as evidenced by the sheer bacchanal fun that rumbles into the early morning hours on any given weekend night at your cantina; and, moreover, you also already possess an adult cabaret license, having obtained it five years ago and maintaining it thus far with the bare minimum activities, a few wet T-shirt and pole-dancing contests. Would you being willing to do away with the glory of your past and become something all together new?

At any rate, you would have to change something, Tommy Rocker says. Weekdays are slow, according to employees, and everyone from the Strip to Downtown knows the alternative to change is death in this mutable town of ours.

"We've had a great run," Tommy Rocker says. "But sometimes you have to reinvent yourself."

Divest yourself of all prejudices for a moment and think: What would I do?

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