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Nov 13, 2009 11:12 pm US/Eastern
Stripper On-A-Truck Promotion Halted In Vegas
LAS VEGAS (AP) ―
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Priska performs during Miss Pole Dance Australia held at the Enmore Theatre September 22, 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Mostly known as originating from the strip club industry, pole dancing has evolved into an artform and exercise.
Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Live strippers on the back of a truck is too much — even for
Sin City.
A
Las Vegas strip club has agreed to stop an advertising promotion that
involved hauling bikini-clad exotic dancers around in a truck with
clear plastic sides.
Larry Beard, marketing director of Deja Vu Showgirls, said Friday that he's taking his lawyer's advice and parking the truck.
"We're
going to respect the opinion of the folks that are against it," Beard
told The Associated Press. "We're going to be good citizens and take it
off the street."
Beard had told the AP earlier
this week that he was prepared to fight county leaders and others who
thought the moving truck promotion was unseemly or unsafe.
"The girls are wearing more than the girls at the
swimming pool
wear," Beard said this week. "Even though they're not stripping and
taking their clothes off I think people are offended because of the
idea that they do."
The truck rolled for 13
nights along the Las Vegas Strip from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m., trying to
lure customers to the club. Three sides had windows that weren't
tinted, offering views of the strippers dancing around a stripper pole.
The tactic worked, with business booming since the truck started going out, Beard said.
"We even have cars and limos follow us to the club," Beard said this week.
The
dancers were allowed to perform in the truck because it was classified
as a vehicle for hire, which let the dancers ride in the back without
seat belts, Beard said.
Public outrage over the truck grew as pictures and videos of the truck surfaced on the Internet and a county commissioner in
Las Vegas vowed to shut it down.
Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said he got calls from citizens who hated it and others who liked it, but he considered the truck a safety problem.
"It's
clearly a distraction," Sisolak told the AP. "Somebody's going to turn
their head to look at some girl flipping upside-down and spinning on a
pole, and take their eyes off the road and could swerve and pop up the
sidewalk and plow into a bunch of tourists that are walking along."
Sisolak said he plans to try to close a loophole in local laws regulating mobile billboards.
Regulations
prohibit advertising vehicles that use animation or flashing lights,
and Sisolak said he would try to prevent live entertainers from being
used, too.
Meanwhile, he's happy the club owners decided to park the truck.
"Could
they have won in court? That would have been a long, costly,
time-exhaustive battle," Sisolak said. "They clearly got a lot of
publicity as it stands, which I'm sure made them happy."
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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