Diary Of A Mad Voter: Jessica Peck Corry
Applauding A New Strip Club In Heavily Regulated Boulder
By Jessica Peck Corry, 1-04-08
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In highly regulated cities like Boulder, Colo., you’ve got to take freedom where you can find it. And in the process, you may just find yourself cheering on the owner of a sleazy strip club.
Described on the Internet as “edgy, artistic, erotic gentlemen’s entertainment,” Boulder’s newest business establishment, Nitro Club, opened just before Christmas and is raising alarm bells with city officials shocked that that club’s owner, Michael Cobb, didn’t first give them the opportunity to kill the project.
They question whether the club deserves to be located on the Pearl Street Mall, the city’s posh shopping district. They wonder aloud why they never heard of the club before reporters brought its existence to their attention.
“I’m surprised,” Councilman Ken Wilson told The Boulder Daily Camera. “It does not sound like a good idea, or what the city intends for our Pearl Street Mall area.”
Critics have a point about the location being a little strange - who wants to pass pole dancers on the way to buy 500-thread count baby sheets at the boutique down the street? But Pearl Street still has a far way to go before it becomes a close cousin to Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District. Tucked away in an alley, the club has no windows to tempt passersby. It greets guests with only a simple steel door.
It is truly a triumph of freedom that somehow Cobb slipped through Boulder’s cumbersome regulatory process unnoticed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried before. In 1998, he applied for a liquor license for a topless bar he was proposing inside city limits. He was denied in a 3-2 vote made after the city’s liquor board heard angry testimony from other business owners and community activists. One board member said he voted no because the stage the dancers were to dance on was too small. You can believe him if you want to.
But this time around, Cobb outsmarted the city’s system. He didn’t need an alcohol license because the club will not sell booze. He told reporters that customers can pay $495 a year and an additional $45 a month to sit in a private area where they will drink alcohol that they must bring in themselves. This area, a nod to overcoming government prohibition, is appropriately called the “The Speakeasy.”
In Boulder, the city council has taken the time to regulate every aspect of the human existence possible. Everything that is, except for strippers.
Terrorists heading to Boulder should be aware that the city has ordained itself a “nuclear-free” zone. No bomb-dropping here, please. Front porches are a source of city regulation. Be prepared to shell out hefty fines if you put any booze out there for your next party. A keg in public view can earn you a visit from the police.
Own a pet in Boulder? Think again. A few years ago, the city changed all references in its ordinances concerning animal ownership. No longer do you “own” a pet. Now you are its guardian.
And the Pearl Street Mall itself has been the source of much regulation. City council members actually took the time to ban the act of throwing Frisbees on the mall. It appears that knock-off disks were excluded from the ban. I’d love to see this one litigated.
Mayor Shaun McGrath is now saying the council will have a “discussion” about the club’s location. In Boulder, talking can only lead to one thing. Regulation, of course. While McGrath concedes that Cobb’s actions appear to be legal, he said the club’s opening begs “the question of, ‘Do we as a community think that a downtown location for a strip bar is appropriate?’ That’s a conversation we need to have, because we haven’t had that before.”
The news of Nitro Club’s opening has garnered media attention near and far. Dozens of people have commented in support on news Web sites. Like most former Boulderites, I find myself in the strange position of cheering on the owner of a sleazy strip club. But alas, can this freedom from regulation possibly last?
Editor’s note: Jessica Peck Corry’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.
[End of article]How could a strip club be sleazier than the internet? My spam filter sidesteps endless offers to make anything bigger, longer, stronger, lasting, whatever. There is nothing about a strip club in Boulder, of all places, that should offend anyone more than Republicans holding office, or children being exposed to more than mom or dad wish for them on the internet. Or CU's football team still schlepping along like some WAC deal. Hell, use the girls for instructors in your vaunted high school sex ed program. Most are going to be coeds trying to pay for school, or support a kid by any means other than the dole.
Comment By jedediah, 1-04-08Sounds to me as though the Boulder City Government may have come up with just the kind of zoning control needed by most municipal areas.
If it becomes too oppressive, the citizens should certainly have an opportunity to vote it our of existence.
I presume at some time in the past they voted it into existence..?
Hah - the guy could get into more trouble calling himself a dog owner and tossing a Frisbee on the Peal Street Mall.
Reminds me of the $5.00 pack of Twinkies for sale outside of Idaho Falls, Idaho where I grew up. The Twinkies cost $5.00 on Sunday and came with a free six pack of beer.
This guy's a modern day Freudian Robin Hood.
Wait a minute. I was told by Republicans the social decline brought on by freedom of choice in such things would cause a social decline, which would be instill islamofascist paratroopers to invade my small western community and cut my throat whilst forcing my female counterparts to wear burkhas.
Could it be I fed a lie?
Does this mean that tax cuts in the face of budget deficits don't really inspire increases in revenue too? What other lies am I being told in order to keep me in line?
Yah, right, this is the city that had the phallic display in the LIBRARY for crying out loud. Or whatever it was.
Boulder is a prudish pinko pesthole. I never imagined such a thing, but hey, most normal people can't imagine Boulder.
Perhaps Boulder needs to learn the art of ecdysiastic pageantry. This is how Seattle made its pasties twinkle this holiday season: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2004083384_nutcracker21.html
Comment By jedediah, 1-05-08Boulder has been about a century ahead of the rest of the nation in community planning and municipal governance since the seventies.
The fly in their ointment is of course the church--more than ever since the evangelicals allied with the reactionaries--who are now camoflaged as neo-conservative Republicans...
jedediah, nice swipe of the sickle and pound of the verbal hammer. It's only 4 months to May Day.
Comment By jedediah, 1-05-08If you find my communal spirit offensive, Craig, it is your problem.
I've lived my life with the greed and corruption inherent in our current system--not by choice; but by accident of birth.
When a tiny fraction of the earth's population controls such a large percentage of its wealth I am troubled--not by envy but by an embarrassment of riches...
jededdiah, it's not your spirit that's offensive, but your attack upon Christianity. Unnecessary to say the least. I don't care that you may be a devotee of neo-paganist beliefs. Please feel free to embrace Thor's hammer and Demeter's sickle as the embodiment of your beliefs.
Comment By jedediah, 1-05-08Thank you for your permission, craig; but unless I can bring some believers around to actually thinking, I'll consider my life to have been a total waste.
We are still abuilding our empires on the backs of coolies, peons, serfs, and peasants; and, in the past almost thirty years, have been driving our own petit bourgeois toward membership in what has been called--for so long--the third world...
jedediah, have you noticed how Clinton, Obama, and Edwards hardly skip a beat professing their Christian beliefs on the stump? Perhaps you can convince them to attend one of your re-education camps until they replace the Bible with recitations from the Little Red Book. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/
Comment By Dave Skinner, 1-05-08Craig, Jed is just one of those converts to the state as a substitute for a religion.
Kinda like the USSR. Ever notice how when the Orthodox church was destroyed in Soviet Russia, and then later the Soviet state failed, there was a rush of corruption and greed?
There's a reason for that.
Oh! I give up. In the face of such heavy weight reasoning I am helpless guys. I'm going to have to get back to you after I've checked out all of those dangerous books which are so worrisome to people who have only The Bible as evidence...
Comment By Craig Moore, 1-06-08Jedidiah, we have strayed from the column theme. Now, when you get your tassels rotating to the left consider how the Boulder Central Committee reflects Mao's words:
We must affirm anew the discipline of the Party, namely:
(1) the individual is subordinate to the organization;
(2) the minority is subordinate to the majority;
(3) the lower level is subordinate to the higher level; and
(4) the entire membership is subordinate to the Central Committee.
Whoever violates these articles of discipline disrupts Party unity."
I'm sure those inspiring words will lift everyone in the Boulder commune to rise up against the nouveau ecdysiastic performance art.
I'm certain that is the way it looks from the vantage point of neo-frontiersman individuality, Craig; but flash!--the frontier actually ceased to exist in 1892 according to most historians.
What worked for Dan'l Boone just won't work anymore--much as we miss its romanticism...
Neo-frontiersman??? Neo-anthing is so passe. Need I remind you that you ground a heavy axe against Christians in your commentary here?
By the way, I guess those historians did not consider the unexplored frontiers of the mind and space. The communal discipline that you espouse is bulit on the blind acceptance of the religion of consensus and the power hierarchy that edicts it. No independent thinking allowed. You said above, "...unless I can bring some believers around to actually thinking, I'll consider my life to have been a total waste." So how do you intend to buck the Boulder Central Committee and get them to accept the Dance of the Seven Veils?
The fact that the City Council is debating whether or not a strip club is appropriate in the middle of the busiest foot traffic and shopping district in the County is - without question - a legitimate debate for the governing body of a democratic government to have.
Jedediah is right about Boulder generally being ahead of the curve in terms of planning and governance. Many controversial policies initiated in Boulder (at least related to land use and zoning) have been replicated throughout the country after it was determined that the policies were effective. I am not sure how the church has been the fly in the City's ointment (more than it has been a fly in any other city's ointment?), that is a statement that should be explained.
Just the same, I appreciate Jedediah's comment because - as expected - it effectively baited Craig Moore into the conversation. Craig Moore, why is it that someone who criticizes the church is labeled by you as a socialist / communist? That is ridiculous.
Craig Moore, why does a statement about evangelicals equal an "attack" on christianity?
Craig Moore, why does an attack on christianity offend you? Get over it. Believe what you believe (hell, even prmote what you believe), but accept that other people may not believe what you believe and may even criticize it - this doesn't make them Stalin or the devil. If you are offended, that is your problem and a reflection of your insecurity about your beliefs. People who are confident in their beliefs are NOT offended by criticism, rather they assess the criticism and respectfully state why they disagree. Instead, you cry about being offended and then label the person a communist? Christ.
ryanus, it's not criticism of the Church that makes one a "socialist/communist" but rather their politics as revealed by their rhetoric.
Regarding jed's criticism of evangelicals, I don't believe, he was referring to Hindu's, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, or any of the other major faiths.
I wasn't offended by his attack on Christians, I just found it completely unnecessary in the context of the column. Seemed rather bigoted to me.
Strip clubs, political contributions and New West have common ground: All are protected "free speech." And that is what makes this place so great when you consider all the alternatives.
I asked a Dutch immigrant why he brought his money to my county to buy a farm, when he had the world to invest in. He said the US is the only place where you have the freedom to move your capital: around the country, off shore, where ever you want to put it. And he added, free speech. No thought police telling you what to say or think.
Boulder has to recognize strip clubs are protected free speech.
I guess some explanation is called for.
Strip clubs are generally opposed by two groups--the church and feminists. I know most of Boulder's feminists are relatively confident of their position; so I assumed it was rightwingchristiancrazies who were puffing up about the exposure of excessive ecdysiastic epidermis...
Has the city 'banned' the naked runners on the mall around Halloween? If this even still occurs, then it seems the city has set the precedent on 'nudity' in public places. The Nitro Club is a private concern, requiring membership.
Comment By jwscotch, 1-07-08Jed, keep it up...the pole, not the worthless propaganda. Boulder and Atlantis are not one and the same but, as with most CO natives, Boulder, like Atlantis, is forever lost to civilization.
Comment By Natanya, 1-07-08For goodness sakes people. I can't believe I read all of these comments. That's time I will never get back.
Believe me, all the locals will know exactly what it is. If the fear is that unknowing tourists will wander in off the street in search of a cool beverage just post a sign, "Explicit Material".
If people don't like it they just don't need to go to the strip club. That's the bottome line.
The problem is not the what, the strip club, but genuflecting before the power base, the Boulder Central Committee. Mr. Cobb found a way around kissing their rings and kneeling before them, and that has embarrassed the Committee. That is what the upset is over. Any talk of tassles, pasties, and poles is merely diversionary code talk for expressing the hee-haw smirk from Cobb's boldness to defy the Committee.
Comment By jedediah, 1-08-08Come to Montana's Bitterroot Valley to see how well individuality can foul up a naturally beautiful area; then tell us--again--how bad an idea zoning and metropolitan planning is compared to individual initiative.
Boulder is a place I went to school, scottyl I'm from Idaho.
Which brings up the matter of the individuality wreckage along old highway thirty between Boise and Ontario...
The "outcry" in Boulder over this downtown strip club is a one-woman crusade.
Crystal Gray.
She's deputy mayor, and in her former role as a neighborhood activist, she single-handedly forced a great restaurant - The Rio Grande - to close and move away from the block near her home. She then single-handedly forced neighborhood parking zones down the throats of all downtown areas. All of this for her benefit - at the expense of others.
If she doesn't like strip clubs, she should NOT GO.
The entry is in an alley, off the main drag, so you'd have to intentionally search for this place to find it.
Those in agreement with Crystal Gray suffer from a secular progressive disease that causes them to morph from free-spirited hippies into repressive victorians - to match the historic architecture.
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