With less than four years to go before a court imposed eviction Wendover strip club owner Scott Bangerter may have been the biggest loser in November’s election.
In a law suit settlement six years ago Bangerter and the city agreed that his strip club would leave its current residence at the Plaza Shopping Center in 10 years to the officially designated “Sexually Oriented” business zone in the city’s industrial park.
Since then Bangerter has made no secret that he wants that agreement revised. The tactic he has taken was to support candidates for mayor and council who were sympathetic to his plight.
He played a key role in the election of Donnie Anderson and was one of Anderson’s biggest donors in the most recent campaign. He also gave heavily to the city council candidates Izzy Gutierrez two years ago and Gerado Rodriguez this year.
But while Rodriguez was a winner, Anderson lost his bid for reelection and Bangerter now has Emily Carter as mayor to contend with as well as three city councilmen who are definitely not on his Christmas card list or he on theirs.
In his defense, Bangerter has claimed that if not for his strip club the Plaza mall could never make a profit.
Once home to Wendover’s only supermarket, the mall struggled to attract retail stores after the new Smith’s was built ten years ago. Businesses came and went but the only constant was Bangerter’s club and eventually he purchased the entire mall. While first his rent checks and later mortgage payments kept the mall afloat, West Wendover began what Bangerter has called low level legal harassment for years.
As late as a year ago A dozen or so dancers at the Southern X-posure strip club were cited for violating various parts of West Wendover’s exotic dancing ordinance.
Bangerter suggested that the citations came only after he made an official complaint to West Wendover Police Chief Ron Supp regarding the conduct of his patrol officers during a walk through of his club this January.
“They barged into the dressing room without even knocking,” He said. “We made a kind of stink about that and then the girls started getting tickets.
While Bangerter’s dancers may not have been cited before the club has had frequent run-ins with the city over a whole host of issues.
In 2006 attempted to adopt a much stricter Sexually Oriented Business License ordinance that would have all but outlawed one of the most profitable service offered at the club — lap dancing.
According to Bangerter the new ordinance would have put him in the impossible position of either having to become a fully fledge SOB or being forced to ban one of the most profitable performances at his club.
Bangerter’s attorneys argued that there had to be room for compromise and the city council faced with a lawsuit agreed at least to begin negotiations with and to delay implementing the new SOB ordinance.
In the middle of those negotiations however an undercover officer reported that things have gotten way out of hand or rather hands may have gotten into things where they do not belong.
In a rather explicit albeit legally worded letter, City Attorney Thomas Coyle gave strip club owner Scott Bangerter a run down of inappropriate acts being committed at his establishment. Coyle added that because of them the city could reconsider its decision to delay implementing a new much harsher sexually oriented business restriction.
According to the letter far from the R-rated stripping or even lap dancing, “entertainment” in recent months at the Southern X-sposure ranged well into XXX. While the letter did not say so, if any of the acts it mention did in fact occur, police could have easily shut down the club on a variety of charges and even arrested the people involved.
While the issue of lap dancing is being hotly debated in Nevada, there are few if any cities that allow the kind of activity detailed in the letter and none in anything but a Sexually Oriented Business.
Even under West Wendover old more liberal ordinance many of the acts detailed in the letter could have been considered illegal, Coyle explained.
Strip club attorney David Lockie did not dispute the veracity of the letter or whether the sexual acts took place. In fact Lockie promised the council that the club was taking measures that they would never happen again.
After the publication of the letter both sides agreed to keep the old more liberal ordinance more or less intact but did add a stripper work card fee that charged the girls “dancing” at the club $100 for that privilege. And Bangerter agreed to move in 10 years.
With less than four years left, bangerter either must pull a political inside straight in the next two elections or start looking for a new location for his club and a buyer for his mall.