Strip club’s license to sell alcohol revoked

The liquor license of a Little Rock strip club was revoked Wednesday by the director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency, who cited the entertainment venue for 72 violations that include prostitution and improper physical contact with customers.

The decision by agency Director Doralee Chandler to revoke the Paper Moon Gentleman’s Club’s license came nearly three weeks after a hearing in which enforcement agents testified for nearly eight hours about incidents observed during an undercover investigation that was conducted on seven occasions in September and October.

The club, which is on Mabelvale Pike south of Asher Avenue in Little Rock, has 15 days to appeal the decision to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. If the board affirms the director’s decision, then the club’s license will be revoked permanently.

“Following a thorough review of the violations along with evidence presented at the hearing, Director Chandler determined the appropriate penalty was revocation of the club’s permit,” said Scott Hardin, spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration. “Over an extended period of time, the club received an extensive number of violations.”

Mike Dickinson, who is on the Paper Moon board of directors and who represented the club at the hearing, said he didn’t know about the revocation until he was told by an Arkansas

Democrat-Gazette reporter Wednesday morning.

“We’ll obviously be appealing,” Dickinson said. “I think that the director’s decision was done with great bias toward the ABC agents involved. Anybody at the hearing would see that the ABC’s amateur agents’ investigation would fail in any court of law. I’ve been to numerous court hearings and have never seen such a Mickey Mouse operation.”

The revocation means the club cannot serve alcohol, but it can still offer entertainment.

“We’re going to stay open without a doubt,” Dickinson said. “We’re exploring options of what we can do.”

The undercover operation found a myriad of violations that included several instances of entertainers soliciting as prostitutes on the premises; entertainers exposing their genitals and breasts to patrons; employees drinking alcoholic beverages on duty; dancers simulating sexual acts; and improper touching between dancers and patrons.

Agent Aaron Longenecker said he was told by a performer that they could go to a private room and have “some fun” for $800 an hour, according to the testimony at the hearing.

Agent Jay Rider testified that a dancer offered to take him to a private room for $1,200 and that another dancer on a separate occasion told the agent that $1,200 would get him a visit to the private upstairs room and a bottle of the

club’s best champagne.

Another dancer told Rider that the club had a private upstairs room where they could do “anything they wanted,” he testified.

In a recent interview with a Democrat-Gazette reporter at the club, Dickinson said the club does not have an upstairs. He conducted a tour of the building. The club is housed in a single-story building with a flat roof. There is only a crawl space between the ceiling tiles and the roof.

Dickinson, who is based in Richmond, Va., also said the club’s previous manager was terminated in March and that a new manager took over last month. The performers cited in the reports were also let go, Dickinson said.

The Paper Moon was bought last fall by William Pyliaris, who owns several strip clubs in the Richmond, Va., metro area. According to the secretary of state’s database, the Little Rock club’s license was first issued in 1967.

Dickinson said he sent in a trainer earlier this month to reinforce the regulations and laws and to impart proper etiquette with the club patrons.

The Paper Moon has been cited by the Alcoholic Beverage Control agency nine times in the past 10 years for similar violations, according to reports obtained by the Democrat-Gazette through the Freedom of Information Act.

Little Rock police raided the club in 2011, resulting in charges of prostitution for four dancers and public indecency for two others.