A strip club that doesn’t serve alcohol is like a Laser Tag arena that won’t turn the damn lights off. You don’t need alcohol to enhance your visit to a strip club, just to silence your brain enough to make your idiotic decisions seem perfectly rational. And yet, night after night, determined patrons of the Show Palace in Long Island City are making the best of it, enjoying healthy beverages from the juice bar and (because there’s no booze) full nudity. These sober proceedings are the fruit of local residents and politicians who have successfully persuaded the SLA to deny the club a liquor license. But now the club’s owners are taking their booze quest to court.
“The whole SLA hearing was essentially the residents saying this area should not be zoned for it,” the club’s new attorney, Albert J. Pirro Jr., tells the Daily News. “I certainly respect the community’s point but that should be taken up with the New York City Council. The hearing really didn’t focus on the proper issues.” Instead of asking the SLA to reconsider at a “futile” second hearing, Pirro will challenge the ruling in court.
“I wish they would just take no for an answer already,” says state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria), a staunch Show Palace opponent. “Many of us have spent decades improving that part of Long Island City. We don’t want to relocate the old Times Square to Queensboro Plaza.” And in an interview with the Queens Gazette, local Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer said, “These guys have been sticking their fingers in the eyes of their neighbors and that’s not the way to come into a community – by showing a real lack of concern and appreciation for the people around you.”
Show Palace’s owners counter that there have not been any incidents or complaints at the club since it opened several months ago. Of course, that’s not counting the complainers on Yelp. Take it away, Richard C., area strip club connoisseur:
The lapdances were quick and uneventful, my friend told me his girl didn’t even take her top off on first dance. The fog machine needs to be cut down, at one point someone I guess forgot to turn it off and the whole place was like 0% visibility and the fire alarm went off. The crowd was pretty much an older crowd of 30 and above, the girls were of various backgrounds but not good dancers at all for why u pay for.
And poor Alyssa J. had an even worse experience, starting with the $20 cover and the bouncer’s refusal to accept “the free admission pass they emailed” her. “If I had at least had a few drinks, I wouldn’t have felt so angry and resentful and wanted to slap the waitress,” Alyssa warns. “A few of the girls actually had decent pole skills, but I was so sober and pissed, and still reeling over the nerve of the cover charge that I couldn’t even enjoy it, and at that point, could have cared less about the added bonus of full nudity. Let’s face it, I’m a lady. If I want to see all that, I can look in the mirror. I go to the strip club for a host of other reasons, none of which Show Palace was able to provide.”
Ladies, why do you go to strip clubs, anyway? The fresh juice?
