Due to loophole, strip club opened with restaurants
At least one metro Phoenix strip club has opened its doors for the first time since the COVID-19 shutdown. Xplicit Showclub in Glendale reopened to the public on Monday, May 11. Le Girls Gentlemen’s Club in Phoenix also announced it would reopen that day, but later reversed its decision.
Gov. Doug Ducey allowed restaurants to reopen their dining rooms this week, leading to mixed responses from diners and business owners. Bars were not included in the executive order, although the governor seemed to give leeway to bars if they also served food.
“They may be licensed as a bar, but they are essentially a dine-in establishment,” Ducey said at a May 4 press conference. “We want to work with the industry so that there’s flexibility so that those places can reopen.”
According to the Arizona Department of Liquor, both Le Girls and Xplicit are licensed as bars. They also have food permits, however. On May 7, the department clarified in a letter that any business that was previously permitted to sell food can reopen its dine-in services, regardless of what liquor license it holds.
On Wednesday, May 13, the Arizona Department of Health Services reported 12,176 cases of COVID-19, with 594 known deaths. The number of Arizona cases likely exceeds official numbers because of limits on supplies and available tests.
‘We want people to come out and have fun, but be safe’
On Monday, Xplicit had 17 topless dancers perform, said the club’s general manager Rodney Wirick. Traffic at night was a little lighter than expected, but it was all in all a good day, he said.
Xplicit operates an in-house kitchen and serves food, which is why the business reopened alongside restaurants on Monday, Wirick said. The menu includes a mix of typical bar food.
Wirick said the business is taking safety precautions, such as spacing tables apart, providing optional masks for dancers and placing hand sanitizer throughout the establishment — although hand sanitizer had been around before the pandemic, too.
The stage has been roped off and patrons will not be allowed to approach the stage, Wirick said. Instead they can either place their tips on a table by the stage or throw the money on the stage. The private rooms are not open yet and lap dances are also not permitted at this time, he added.
“We don’t want to make too much light of what’s going on,” Wirick said. “We want people to come out and have fun, but be safe. A lot of people have suffered through this time plus it’s not a light subject.”
Why one strip club canceled its reopening
On Monday, May 11, Le Girls Gentlemen’s Club in Phoenix posted on its Instagram account it would reopen that day at 3 pm. Sometime afterward, the post was removed.
Sgt. Mercedes Fortune, a spokesperson for Phoenix police, confirmed the agency dispatched officers to the club in response to a call received at 3:15 p.m. The officers reported Le Girls was closed when they arrived, Fortune said.
“We just weren’t ready,” said Le Girls manager Josh McMaster. “We weren’t prepared for the exposure that might be out there. It’s something we really wanted, to open as soon as possible, but we wanted to make sure we had every duck in a row with the riskiness of being in the nightclub itself.”
McMaster did not specify what prompted the club to reassess its reopening plan, but said the limited availability of masks played a major part in the last-minute reevaluation.
Le Girls has two showrooms, one for topless entertainment and one for nude entertainment. The club also serves food and drinks.
For now, Le Girls will hold off on reopening, McMaster said. The team is going to watch and learn from how other businesses throughout the state are handling their reopening, he said.
“We’re just taking it one day at at a time like everybody else,” McMaster said. “We really, really want to reopen.”