ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PLUM CREEK
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
THE NOTORIOUS NIGHT SPOT that many Plum Creek families love to hate is back. But it's now billed as a private club to avoid the legal grasp of Montgomery County.
The young women are stripping again at Juicie's, a nightclub near Radford where dancers were forced to cover up in February after the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors banned public nudity.
Juicie's has gone private, charging $10 per person for a six-month membership, in addition to a $5 cover fee each visit.
To club manager Keith Guthrie and his lawyer, Lance Hale, that puts them beyond the reach of the law the supervisors unanimously passed Feb. 12 after more than 100 people packed a public hearing to urge a stop to nude dancing.
Some of those residents are still hoping Juicie's can be run out of the county, and county authorities say they're keeping an eye on just how private the club really is.
The public nudity ordinance makes it a misdemeanor to appear in public without one's buttocks, breasts and genitals fully covered. The ordinance required dancers to wear nothing less than a bikini.
While Guthrie went along with the ordinance immediately after it was passed - dancers scurried to find shorts and bikini tops about a half-hour after the ordinance was adopted - it didn't take long for him to reconsider.
"I went private six days later," Guthrie said. "We've got over 300 new members. Somebody wanted us up there, didn't they?"
Now, he's thinking about opening a similar private club in the Richmond area and possibly taking his Girls Girls Girls operation on Franklin Road in Roanoke private, too.
Dancers at Juicie's are back to wearing pasties and G-strings for most of their performances, Guthrie said. Once an hour, he said, a dancer performs a "tasteful, expressive" dance where total nudity is involved.
"We're still non-alcoholic. I have no desire to even fool with alcohol," Guthrie said.
For now, Montgomery County is accepting Juicie's private status.
Henry Jablonski, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, represents District D, which includes the Plum Creek community.
He was unaware the club had gone private until contacted for this story.
"I don't know the implications that would have legally," Jablonski said. "That would be up to the sheriff and the county attorney."
"I did get complaints about it before we took action," Jablonski said of Juicie's. But he said he hasn't received any phone calls since the vote.
"If they are truly private, they are beyond the scope of the county's ordinance," County Attorney Roy Thorpe said recently. "I have discussed this with the sheriff, and his office will be monitoring the operation of Juicie's to see if in fact it is a private club."
"We're observing and watching that to see what kinds of problems that causes for us," Sheriff Doug Marrs said of the club's switch to private status.
But he said the Sheriff's Office hasn't had any problems at the club since its reopening.
Juicie's attempt to operate in Plum Creek has taken many turns in the five months since its November opening. Deputies shut down the show after two undercover officers watched a performance and decided the act was illegal. Three dancers, Guthrie and the building's owner were charged with giving or allowing an obscene performance and indecent exposure.
The club reopened in January after Montgomery Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith asked a judge to drop the charges. Keith decided the dancers' acts were constitutionally protected.
Keith told county authorities the supervisors could pass a reasonable ordinance of regulation as long as it wasn't "overly restrictive of their right to express eroticism."
In Montgomery County, many of those opposing the club at the Feb. 12 hearing were residents who said Juicie's is a blight on the efforts of the once rough-and-tumble Plum Creek community to become a good neighborhood for families and small businesses.
Hale, a lawyer who represents the club, said many of the concerns residents voiced at the public hearing were ill-founded.
"Juicie's wants to become a good neighbor," he said. The club has neither garish advertising nor brightneon lights to draw attention to itself, Hale said. Instead, there's a simple sign outside the building that now says "members only."
That may be, but the club's very existence still irks folks like Reba and Curtis Long, who were in the crowd the night the supervisors adopted the ordinance. The privatizing of Juicie's does little to comfort the Longs, who say they can see the club's exterior from their home.
"I wish we could get rid of the place," Reba Long said. "I want them out of here."
Not being able to see inside the club and its low-key advertising does little to quell her concerns.
"I really thought this would be a peaceful place when we moved here. You know what's going on. ... Nobody knows whose husband goes there. It's just not fit to live here."
Her husband, Curtis Long, heard about the club going private at his workplace. He said that if Radford can curtail nude dancing, Montgomery County should be able to do so, also.
In Radford, Bumpers Cafe's efforts to showcase semi-nude dancers ended after just two evenings when the City Council passed new obscenity and public nudity ordinances the same night Montgomery County adopted its new law.
"I'd like to see them get it out. I don't think they should have anything like that in a neighborhood," Curtis Long said. "I think it'd be awful if they couldn't shut it down."
Thorpe said determining whether Juicie's is truly private presents an enforcement problem, because the Sheriff's Office can't constantly monitor the club.
But there remains the question of how private the club really is.
"If it's an instantaneous membership, then it is nothing more than a cover charge," Thorpe said.
Guthrie said members are required to be at least 18 years old and must read and sign club bylaws that stipulate neat dress, no abusive behavior and no touching of the dancers.
Prospective members sign up at the door by completing an application, paying the membership fee and admission and signing the bylaws.
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