With the Super Bowl expected to draw its usual thousands, Atlanta's strip clubs are preparing for the deluge of the National Football League's biggest weekend of the year. And they include the club whose owner and several employees were recently indicted in a federal racketeering case which also involves providing free booze and broads to professional athletes, including three of the National Basketball Association's marquee names.
The clubs cater to conventioneers, as might be expected, even going as far as printing phony restaurant-sounding names on their credit card receipts so patrons can submit their expenses to their companies and their spouses without fear, the Associated Press says.
"Atlanta's strip clubs have become as much a symbol of this city as Coca-Cola," the AP says. "When big events come to town, smiling young women greet out-of-towners at the entrances to hotels, restaurants and sports venues, passing out tiny cards that grant free admission to the clubs. Industry estimates say 60 percent of the clubs' business comes straight from the wallets of visitors."
The Gold Club, of course, drew the notoriety in December when the case against owner Steven Kaplan and several employees broke. The early reports on the case included information that three top basketball stars - Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks, Dennis Rodman, and Ewing's former Knicks teammate Charles Oakley - enjoyed thousands of dollars worth of bar privileges and strippers.
Georgians in general tend to complain about the clubs, but the AP says they remain moneymaking machines in spite of it. ``These businesses are nothing more than bottom feeders in the tourism industry,'' Henry Munford, marketing director for the Georgia World Congress Center, one of the nation's most successful convention centers, tells the AP.
But the AP says those who plan such marquee Atlanta convention events as the Southern Baptist Convention, this summer's major league baseball All-Star Game, and Sunday's Super Bowl game, don't come to town just because of the strippers. ``Most of the people who make these decisions are women, anyway,'' Munford tells the AP. ``And we certainly don't use it to promote the city.''
They like to credit Atlanta's modern facilities, large airport, and affordable lodgings, the AP says - but Atlanta's disadvantage is that it has no Riverwalk, French Quarter, or Broadway to keep conventioneers occupied.
Much of downtown Atlanta closes at 5:30 p.m. EST, leaving out-of-towners to hunt for nightlife. And many of the city's strip clubs are within a five dollar taxicab trip from the major hotels, while Buckhead, where many of Atlanta's other nightclubs are found, takes as long as half an hour because of the city's heavy traffic, the AP says.
One 31-year-old dancer, calling herself Sophia, tells the AP the strip clubs offer shuttles from downtown hotels and the clubs tip concierges, bellhops, and taxi drivers if they send guests to them - often standard practice in many convention-magnet cities which also feature brisk adult entertainment scenes.
``When there's a big show or convention in town, they'll pull up by the busloads,'' she tells the AP. ``I guess when these guys get out of town, they feel they can let their hair down. I have no trouble taking advantage of that.''
The Atlanta strip clubs also try to make themselves distinctive for the region, borrowing from the splashy Las Vegas style more than the seedier, tighter Times Square style of myth. Also, strippers in Georgia can dance completely in the buff, without G-strings or pasties if they choose. And the clubs themselves, the AP says, foster and try to attract a class image - serving on linen tablecloths, offering marbled bathrooms with attendants, and brass-trimmed mirrored walls.
Attorney Alan Begner, who represents half the areas strip clubs and a few lingerie modeling businesses, tells the AP very few cities allow alcohol and completely nude dancing in the same place, and the threat of losing liquor licenses keeps the clubs in line.
"The licenses are so valuable that the clubs usually adhere to standards even tougher than those adhered to by local officials,'' he tells the AP. ``Some of the things that go on in the clubs without liquor would shock the people who are trying to shut the industry down, because there's no check there.''
Begner is in a strong position to know about the shockable crowd and their political supporters. He represents the Gold Club, whose liquor license Mayor Bill Campbell's been trying to pull since Kaplan and other club workers were indicted. And many anti-strip club activists have been using the Gold Club case to push for tighter restrictions on the strip scene.
But Oasis Goodtime Emporium manager Ted Gibson tells the AP that as long as the strip clubs follow the rules, "we're not going anywhere. People look for this kind of entertainment, and as long as they're looking, there'll be someone to give it to them.''
But in light of the Gold Club case, people may also be looking for whom might be enjoying the strip clubs' entertainment - including athletes, with the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans already in town preparing to clash in Super Bowl XXXIII.
