Free Republic

A pastor whose disappearance from a small town in upstate New York triggered a search by police and the FBI was found earlier today — inside an Ohio strip club. Police said that when the Rev. Craig S. Rhodenizer, 46, was confronted by an officer, he began crying and said he couldn't remember anything about the 36 hours he was missing. But dancers at the club remembered Rhodenizer. They told investigators that Rhodenizer spent two hours drinking, soliciting dances and making threatening comments. He also said he wanted to take the dancers back to his motel, according to the police...

AUSTIN — A Travis County judge ruled Friday that the state's new $5-per-patron strip club fee is an unconstitutional tax, but the state promised to appeal... The Legislature enacted the adult entertainment fee, effective Jan. 1, and dedicated the first $25 million to sexual assault prevention and additional revenue to low-income health care. The fee was expected to raise more than $50 million for health care in its first two years. It was the dedication of money to health care that caused the tax to be unconstitutional, Jenkins said. He heard testimony from club owners, state employees and sexual assault...

CLEVELAND -- Underground nightclubs where patrons can smoke freely and watch strippers after midnight have opened in some of the city's residential neighborhoods since the state began enforcing new restrictions on strip clubs and public smoking last year, police say. Some of the nightclubs, also called "smokehouses," offer customers the opportunity to have sex with prostitutes, police said. "They have succeeded in creating this underground, sleazy, cash-only business that cannot be regulated, taxed or secured by police," said attorney Skip Lazzaro, who represents legal nightclubs. Informants have told police that patrons are mostly white suburban men. Customers bring their own...

SYDNEY (AFP) - The vast majority of Australians believe a drunken visit to a strip club by the man tipped to be their next prime minister simply proves he is "a normal bloke," an opinion poll showed Monday. A remarkable 85 percent of voters, both men and women, saw opposition leader Kevin Rudd's escapade in a New York nightclub in those terms, according to a poll for the Herald Sun newspaper. The Labor Party leader had predicted he would suffer in opinion polls after admitting visiting the racy Scores nightclub in New York during a trip to the United Nations...

The Houston Police Department's Vice Squad is putting together plans to start raiding dozens of the city's sexually oriented businesses. That crackdown, 11 News has learned, could begin within weeks. Owners of more than 120 topless clubs, modeling studios and adults bookstores in Houston will soon receive a two-page letter from the city's Legal Department. The letter says the businesses are in violation of the city's sexually oriented business ordinance; too close to neighborhoods, schools or parks. The City of Houston has spent more than $1.3 million in court costs over the last decade fighting to enforce this ordinance. Now,...

Nude dancers will not be coming back to Pine Bluff, WI. Efforts by the owners of the defunct Hot Rod's strip club to regain their liquor and adult entertainment licenses have failed, with Dane County Circuit Judge Angela Bartell ruling against the owners and in favor of the town. "This is a major victory for Pine Bluff, which fought an uninvited strip club from the very beginning," said attorney Mark Hazelbaker, one of several attorneys working on the town's behalf in the case.The owners had sued the town in June 2005, after the town revoked the liquor license for Hot...

INDIANAPOLIS - Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers was slugged in the mouth, struck by a car and fired a gun in the air in self-defense outside a strip club early Friday, police said. Jackson was limping but refused medical treatment at the scene, police spokesman Sgt. Matthew Mount said. Jackson conferred with a team trainer and sought treatment at a hospital. Officers found a small amount of marijuana in the passenger side door of Pacer point guard Jamaal Tinsley's car, police said. Officers could not determine the car's driver or to whom the marijuana belonged, so no arrests were...

A former waitress at a Brockton strip club who says she was tired of being mistreated by men allegedly mailed explosive packages to Bridgewater State College, strip clubs, a motorcycle gang, Fox 25, and KISS 108 radio station, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. Kimberly Lynn Dasilva, 40, of Hull, who hosts sex toy parties and sells adult gift baskets from an Internet site, was arrested Friday night after FBI agents and State Police raided her home and found letters hidden in the ceiling tiles of her bedroom that allegedly linked her to the mailings last September.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A 40-foot motor home was converted into a strip club on wheels, offering alcohol and lap dances to football fans outside the stadium before kickoff of Sunday's Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, police said. Six women performed lap dances inside the motor home, charging $20 to $40 depending on whether they danced topless or totally nude, police said Tuesday. The vehicle, adorned with a sign for strip club Deja Vu, was parked across the street from Raymond James Stadium. Patrons paid a $20 cover charge and were served alcohol, said Tampa police Sgt. Bill Todd. Officers also...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Savvis Communications said on Monday it had placed its chief executive on unpaid leave and will launch an internal probe related to a credit card company lawsuit alleging he was two years late in paying $241,000 in charges at a Manhattan strip club. The telecommunications carrier said Robert McCormick was placed on unpaid leave effective Monday, pending the outcome of the investigation. Jack Finlayson, president and chief operating officer, has been appointed acting CEO. The lawsuit, brought by American Express against McCormick and Savvis last week, charges that the two were late in paying charges rung...

A new state law banning seminude lap dances at Missouri strip clubs was declared unconstitutional by a judge Friday, two days before it was to go into effect. Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan said provisions of the law violate First Amendment protections and state constitutional limits on amending a bill beyond its original purpose. "The state may not limit persons of majority age from engaging in lawful expressive conduct protected by the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution without a substantial and direct connection to adverse secondary effects, a showing that has not been made," Callahan said in...

Former San Diego City Councilman Ralph Inzunza has been hired by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council to teach computer, math and language skills to low-income job seekers. Inzunza began his job the first week of August, about two weeks after he and ex-Councilman Michael Zucchet were convicted of federal corruption charges and resigned from the council. "We have a job and he can do the job very well," said Secretary-Treasurer Jerry Butkiewicz. "It seemed like a perfect fit." Inzunza's new job, which pays $30,000 to $40,000 a year, was offered spontaneously by Butkiewicz during a lunch date the last...

LOS ANGELES -- For years, Howard White has advertised his strip club near Los Angeles International Airport with a not too subtle marquee reading "Live Nude Nude Nudes." But some tourists and nearby businesses say White has gone too far with his latest pitch for the Century Lounge: a freshly posted sign proclaiming "Vaginas R' Us." "We don't appreciate the signage and we're working with the city to make sure this establishment is adhering to all codes," said Laurie Hughes, executive director of Gateway to L.A., an association that promotes businesses along Century Boulevard just east of the airport. White,...

What's obscene and what isn't? Frankly worded billboard infuriates merchants along Century Boulevard near LAX, but the owner says he's merely promoting his business. A McDonald's near LAX has a big poster outside showing hamburgers, and a neighboring gas station mini-mart ad displays its snacks and beverages. And now a nearby strip club and adult shop on Los Angeles' Century Boulevard is advertising exactly what it has to offer -- in very plain language. Passersby on the busy thoroughfare were greeted Tuesday with a freshly posted sign outside the Century Lounge proclaiming "Vaginas R' Us." As no surprise, the less-than-subtle...

Save Our Strippers! Lawmakers want to kill gentlemen's clubs -- and the livelihoods of the women who run them. By Joe P. Tone If the "Stripper Bill" passes, dancers will have to zip up at 11 p.m. She knows you won't believe her, and she knows the starched shirts in Columbus won't either, but Robyn wants you to hear it anyway: The strip club saved her life. "I found my independence," she says, hands tucked nervously between her knees, as she sits in the champagne room at Diamond Men's Club on the East Bank of the Flats. It's early in...

Strip club a winner vs. LDS ChurchFight isn’t over: A jury is expected to decide if the downtown Crazy Goat is a public, private nuisance Salt Lake City officials may now regret the decision, but they were right to allow stripping at the downtown Dead Goat - aka Crazy Goat - Saloon, a 3rd District judge ruled Wednesday. The LDS Church certainly regrets the city’s decision and had sued over it. But Judge Denise Lindberg sided against the church on two major claims. One of the saloon’s attorneys declared the semi-nude strippers are here to stay. "This is a major...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Kid Rock was arrested Wednesday by Nashville police who are investigating a report that he punched a disc jockey at an adult entertainment club. Kid Rock was brought before Night Court Commissioner Howard Taradash early Wednesday morning. He is charged with simple assault, a misdemeanor. Taradash set bond at $3,000 and the rapper remained in custody until bail could be posted. Authorities said Kid Rock was charged after a 3 a.m. altercation at Christie's Cabaret near downtown Nashville. "Inside the establishment there was a squabble concerning, I guess, the selection of music," Nashville police Sgt. James Smith...

The widening sex scandal over recruiting practices at Colorado gives new meaning to the nickname of the school's sports teams: Buffs. That's short for Buffaloes, which, when used as a verb, seems every bit as appropriate. Everybody in the football program from coach Gary Barnett on down claims to have been caught off guard - baffled, bewildered, buffaloed - by each new report that recruits on campus visits were entertained by strippers and brought to parties where the booze and women appeared theirs for the taking. "If this is true," Barnett said about the latest revelation, "it is a violation...

The University of Minnesota's most celebrated football recruit this year said he backed out of his commitment to the school because a number of Gophers players took him and three other recruits — one of whom was underage — to a strip club during his official recruiting trip last month, a practice that apparently happened at least twice after that.Lydon Murtha's trip to the club during the weekend of Dec. 5 was enough to "shock" him and contribute to his doubts about whether the U was the right place for him."I'm not into that kind of stuff," said Murtha, an...

A judge has ruled that a suburban topless bar does not qualify as a cigar bar exempt from the state indoor smoking ban just because 10 percent of its revenue comes from tobacco sales. The owner of Diamond Dolls in Salina sued the Onondaga County Health Department in August after it was denied the exemption from the Clean Indoor Air Act, which generally requires a smoke-free workplace. Only one bar in the county, Awful Al's in Syracuse, is a cigar bar with smoking permitted, Health Commissioner Dr. Lloyd Novick told The Post-Standard. Diamond Dolls owner Ken Rubin claimed he met...

(Irish Actor) Colin Ferrell is doing his best to uphold his red blooded reputation while shooting 'A Home at the End of the World' in the East Village.The lusty leprechaun dragged co-star Robin Wright Penn and director Michael Cunningham to Score's strip club Monday night, where he asked for his favorite buxom blonde dancers, Evelyn and Victoria.The tempting twosome were off duty, so Farrell and friends had to settle for lap dances from a legion of other lovlies. A spy tells us that Farell had his arm around Wright-Penn (who is married to Sean Penn) for much of the night,...

<p>FBI agents leave Cheetah's in Las Vegas after the raid Wednesday.</p> <p>LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Dozens of FBI agents conducted raids in two states as part of a public corruption probe seeking information about strip club owners and their possible involvement with elected officials.</p>

<p>After nearly six hours of a heated debate, the Shreveport City Council on Tuesday rejected arguments that Mayor Keith Hightower's administration misused public funds and voted that Deja Vu strip club is legally zoned to do business at 202 Commerce St.</p>

WICHITA FALLS, Texas -- A Texas man is jailed after allegedly going on a rampage in a strip club after finding his daughter working there. Witnesses say 41-year-old Lee Wayne Lawrence was dressed in survival gear when he was arrested unharmed at Maximus in Wichita Falls. Lawrence remained in the Wichita County Jail Monday under $500,000 bond, charged with aggravated assault. Police say Lawrence entered the club Saturday night, destroyed furniture and was carrying what appeared to be a pipe bomb. Investigators say he damaged two 7-foot-tall water-bubble lamps and a leopard-skin chair and slashed three tables tops with a...

An Ojibwe man has declared a piece of land in this tiny town a sovereign nation, opened a strip club and pledged to fight with anyone who tries to mess with either.'There ain't no way on God's green earth that they're going to stop me,' said Al LaFontaine, 82, of St. Paul, MN.It's not the first time LaFontaine has said that.In 1959, he offered to sell a third of North Dakota to the Soviet Union and he has put forward a variety of schemes to build casinos on land that he's bought and declared sovereign.As an enrolled member of the...

Prosecutors Charge 95 People With Registering to Vote Using Small-Town Strip Club as AddressBy Steve Karnowski Associated Press WriterPublished: Oct 16, 2002 COATES, Minn. (AP) - Prosecutors charged 95 people with forgery Wednesday for an alleged scheme in which they all registered to vote using the same address: a strip club recently shut down by city officials. Most of the alleged forgers lived outside the town. The scheme, in which the club's owner also was charged, could have given club supporters a political majority in the town of 163 people. The mayor and two council members are in contested races...

<p>What goes on in Las Vegas area strip clubs helps give Sin City its reputation. But now a county ordinance will make lap dances a little less sexy by restricting gyrations and outlawing stuffing bills in G-strings.</p> <p>Dancers say they won't make as much money, and strip club supporters accuse the county of trying to police morality.</p>