On Beverly Drive, just a block away from the Gucci and Giorgio Armani stores on Rodeo Drive, sits the Beverly Club. In darkness broken by splashes of color from the stage lights, women dance around a pole as they undress, to the music "Night Moves" by Bob Seger and "Crazy" by Aerosmith.
Can this be Beverly Hills, the upper-crust bedroom community supposedly above the garishness of Hollywood's gritty streets? The city where Jimmy Stewart made his home, where police are so meticulous they can be spotted getting manicures?Los Angeles magazine reported last month that "strip clubs are hotter than ever" and entertainment figures, like Courteney Cox, an actress on NBC's "Friends," have been seen at Crazy Girls, a strip club in nearby Hollywood.
City officials have become eager to attract visitors at night, because they want increased tax revenues, and have considered options in the last year to create a special zoning district where nighttime entertainment can thrive.
"Our city has to keep people here at night," Mayor Les Bronte said. He wants to lure a supper club, a jazz bar and a comedy club, "the type of club that Beverly Hills represents."
But the Beverly Club, which opened last September independently of the city's efforts, is not what the city had in mind, and some residents are unhappy with its arrival. Now Beverly Hills is working on an ordinance to regulate "adult entertainment," in some ways more strictly than the rules of a California agency that regulates alcohol-serving establishments statewide.
While First Amendment rights preclude cities from shutting down strip clubs altogether, Beverly Hills' adult-entertainment law would ban clubs within 300 feet of a school, church, park or residential area or another club.
The proposed law also bars lap dancing and direct tipping and requires that there be a minimum distance of 10 feet between a dancer and a patron during stage performances - more than the 6 feet required by the state Alcohol and Beverage Control Department. The Beverly Club would not have to move under the proposed ordinance but might have to make some interior changes.