Centerfold Strips Bachelor Party Strippers & Exotic Dancers Published in The Post Gazette

Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette
Club Royale at 31st Street and Liberty Avenue in the Strip District is cutting entrance fees and bringing in extra dancers from Florida for the All-Star Game.
By Timothy McNultyPittsburgh Post-Gazette
Some businesses roll out the red carpet for All-Star Game visitors. Others take off their tops.
All-Star weekend is estimated to generate $52.3 million for the local economy, with some of it going right into the garter belts of the city's strip clubs. The weekend promises the strip clubs' ideal audience: guys with spending money coming into town for a few days, and nights, of fun.


"It's going to be a huge weekend -- absolutely," says Jim, the manager of Club Royale, formerly Bare Elegance, in the Strip District.
"If you're going to an All-Star Game, you're going to be spending some money, more so than a local customer. If people are coming in with their families, I wish them a great time in the city -- if they're single, we'll be here for them," says Jim, who asked that his last name not be used.
Albert Bortz, the owner of Blush, Downtown's oldest and only strip club, lets out a long, seen-it-all (and we do mean all) sigh when asked how he knows the game will drive up business.
"What do I base it on? The fact that there's gonna be 100,000 people in the city," he says.
Bortz has run Blush -- formerly Club Elite and the Edison Hotel -- for 36 years, just as his father, uncle and great-uncle ran the entertainment spot before him. Big sporting events historically drive the business.
"You live and die with the sports in this city. It makes a big difference. Even when the Steelers are playing, you've got a bump on a Saturday night because there are so many people in from out of town," Bortz says.
Other businesses -- such as limo services -- catering to the good-time tourist crowd are also gearing for extra business. Professional Limousine in the Strip District is running bus trips to local golf courses and taking calls from geographically challenged ticket-holders who don't know their Downtown hotels are just across the river from PNC Park.
"We have people calling from out of town, staying at the Renaissance, wanting a bus to the ballpark," says dispatcher Bob Dowds.
Dowds also expects other, last-moment calls for limos during the weekend nights.
"They want to go where the action is," he says.
City hotels and restaurants are bringing in extra staff, sprucing up and doing extra promotions to reel in All-Star guests. The city's strip clubs are doing the same.
Blush is bringing in an extra featured dancer (model Brandy Lynn Banks) for the Monday and Tuesday of All-Star week -- such dancers are normally booked only on weekends -- and extending its Sunday hours.
Club Royale is cutting entrance fees in half, printing All-Star-themed admission tickets and planning to bring in extra dancers from Florida. The club also pays cab drivers to bring tourists to the doors.
"We've got the cabbies locked and loaded" for the weekend, says Jim.
As great as things should be for the clubs, there are challenges.
Exotic dancing being what it is -- a business dependent on women stripping down to G-strings and pasties for money -- it is difficult to know how many employees will show up for work on a given day, even on a surefire payday.
Jim, dressed in polo shirt and jeans, with a mouthful of braces, thinks he'll have about 30 dancers over the weekend but can only guesstimate.
"These are dancers. They have dancer time and dancer hours," he says. "It's an 80/20 business: If 80 percent show up, we'll do fine. If we have extra girls, believe me, we'll keep them busy."
The dancers will mostly be busy with regular clientele -- while the city will swell with millionaire ballplayers and a few celebrities, the smart ones will probably steer clear of public clubs, says Dan Capozzi of Centerfold Strips in New York, a national exotic dancer agency.
No one wants publicity similar to Braves outfielder Andruw Jones, who admitted to receiving sexual favors at Atlanta's Gold Club in 2001, in the presence of other famous athletes.
"In this day and age professional athletes have been low-profile about using adult entertainment. ... [The Gold Club] became a turning point, I think, as far as professional athletes as well as celebrities in general, to be very careful when they use adult entertainment services," Capozzi says.
More than 50 police agencies are cooperating on law enforcement over the weekend, but the focus is on antiterrorism efforts -- as long as they behave themselves, All-Star visitors should be able to whoop it up at all the city's bars and clubs until the 2 a.m. closing time.
Pittsburgh Police will do their regular vice patrols, in common prostitution spots such as Downtown, the North Side and Lawrenceville, but have not planned additional vice details, according to Chief Dom Costa.
Bortz's family has owned the Edison Hotel and related clubs for decades, through all five All-Star Games in Pittsburgh. Only lately have they turned into five-day events, and Bortz -- like other Downtown business owners -- could not be happier.
"It's really well promoted by Major League Baseball. They've done a terrific job with it," he says.
First published on July 5, 2006 at 12:00 amTim McNulty can be reached at tmcnulty@post-gazette.com or