Beating a Dead Goat

Raunchy Downtown Salt Lake Staple Closes its Doors

By Tracy Medley, 2-05-07

After years of controversy concerning its prime downtown locale, the Crazy Goat Saloon, formerly The Dead Goat has shut its doors forever. The Goat drew ire from the LDS church when its owner, Daniel Darger received permission from the city to transform his dive (I mean that in a good way) into a semi-nude “dance club” a few years ago. Details behind the bar’s closure are still unknown.

After the city’s 2003 decision to allow the club’s formal strip down, as it were, the LDS church stepped in, suing the city just to make it clear that a nudie-bar was not welcome on their turf. The city eventually won the suit, but lamented their original decision to allow the club’s sex-up, which led the City Council to banish any future naked-bouncy-type businesses from opening in the downtown area.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that some City Council members couldn’t be happier about the closure. City Councilman Eric Jergensen who was behind the ban had this to say, “I don’t think it speaks well of the diversity of the city to have a strip club downtown,” he said in The Tribune. When we have people come into our city from all over the world, I think we can put a better face on our downtown than that.”

But, this issue really does beg a larger question about our city; while we should indeed be concerned with our reputation, must we really go so far that our prudishness results in bullishness? Is it really fair and beyond that accurate for our city to maintain its neutered, white-bread image?

If the City Council is so worried about what the world thinks, their time might be better spent attempting to solve the travesties of homelessness and hunger in the downtown area rather than congratulating themselves on the riddance of a little downtown raunchiness.

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