I see that Scores has opened in the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. It’s the first strip club ever to open within the confines of an Atlantic City casino. It’s got expensive booze, pulsating music, dancers on poles and lap dances at 0 per half-hour.
No word yet on whether you’ll be able to use your slot-club points for those.
And no, the dancers are not naked. It’s against the gaming regulations, so they have G-strings and pasties.
Hey, this is a family resort, pal.
I know it’s a family resort because Miss America’s back. Scores opened just in time to view, from the poles, the Miss America “Show Us Your Shoes” parade passing by. The clean-cut, all-American beauty pageant will turn up its volume so it can be heard over all the bumping and grinding and dance music.
I’m guessing that in the future, Scores will have its own indoor parade to match the “Show Us Your Shoes” event, only with something other than shoes.
The really great part about this juxtaposition of family values and lusty debauchery is that the Miss America contestants will have something on which to fall back if they lose. “Great dance, baby—here’s a twenty. Hey, weren’t you Miss North Dakota?”
Bob Gans, the managing partner of the Scores chain, says the arrival of the strip club on the Boardwalk will give Atlantic City “sex appeal”—a term which, in Atlantic City, traditionally meant a loosely attached fanny pack.
In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Gans pointed out that the 30 million annual visitors to Atlantic City include lots and lots of adults, and that “this offers them adult entertainment and an experience they’ll never forget.” He added, “This is not your father’s strip club.”
Well, my father never went to a strip club as far as I know, but if he did, I guarantee you he didn’t pay a hundred bucks for a half-hour lap dance.
But this is not your father’s Atlantic City, either. If it was, just the announcement that Scores was upstairs would cause half the customers on the slot floor to go Code Blue. There would be a massive traffic jam between the bus lounge and the venue—a giant gridlock of Rascals as bus patrons made their way to the pole-dancing.
Seriously, though, when Gans said this is “not your father’s strip club,” he was talking about the “high-end” nature of this joint. It doesn’t look like a strip club. It’s tucked away on that cavernous second level of the Taj, with a sign, a curtain and not much else on the outside. Inside, you know it’s high end because you’ll probably need hundreds of dollars if you want to stay there more than five minutes.
The Scores chain actually advertises itself as a “modern gentleman’s club,” with the New York City venue advertising “the most beautiful exotic dancers in the world, celebrity sightings and spontaneous entertainment.”
Wow. I love spontaneous entertainment.
The Atlantic City Scores is three and a half times larger than the one in New York, and according to Gans, it represents an “evolution” of the modern gentleman’s club into a social adult entertainment experience for men and women alike. (In fact, they’re starting up a male revue in the venue later this month.) It’s a natural for an Atlantic City market that has for years been trying to court more young, hip and diverse clientele to finally shed its image as the old-lady-at-the-slot-machines place.
In the Inquirer article, Atlantic City Alliance CEO Liza Cartmell commented that the adult theme fits in nicely with the local “Do AC” marketing campaign, which is aimed at adults. John Palmieri, executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, was also quoted in the article, “We are remaining true to who we are and what we are, when we can cater to opposite ends of the spectrum and everything in between successfully.”
Yes, Atlantic City is now multi-tasking to serve its market, running Miss America alongside exotic dancers. It’s a market that can serve ice cream to the kiddies while advertising righteous babes slithering down poles. (“Don’t worry, honey. They use pasties. The kids will be fine.”)
Heck, maybe some day Miss New Jersey will be a Scores alum:
“Miss New Jersey, if you could do anything to promote peace and harmony in the world, what would it be?”
“I would offer lap dances to all of the richest people in America, and I would use the money I earn to house refugees, feed hungry children and save abandoned puppies.”
Oh, there she is…
