Strip club reopens after liquor license restored

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

Owners of the Treasures strip club re-opened Wednesday night just hours after a divided Las Vegas City Council voted to give the club owners a liquor license.

The extravagant club, just south of Sahara Avenue and next to Interstate 15, has been closed since mid-September when the council pulled the liquor license after a Treasures dancer was convicted of solicitation of prostitution. A District Court judge overturned that conviction last month, which led to the council's reconsideration of the license on Wednesday.

"The day they took my license was one of the worst days of my life," Ali Davari, one of the owners of Treasures, said. "But when we got it back; today is a good day for me. I'm so happy."

Davari said he was most happy for the employees who will come back to work. Treasures has about 125 employees, plus more than 1,000 dancers. Davari estimated about 80 percent of the staff will return eventually.

Carolina Cast, 22, who has worked as a dancer at Treasures since it opened in September 2003, stood outside the club shortly after it opened at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. Cast, who has been employed at Jaguars strip club while Treasures was closed, said she was happy to return to the club.

"It's so beautiful and has the potential to bring in big money," Cast said, who will be returning to the club as a cocktail waitress instead of a dancer.

She said she never believed that a Treasures employee solicited for prostitution in the club, adding that both Treasures and Jaguars were safer than any other topless or nude clubs in Las Vegas.

Cathie Ringler, 35, was the head cocktail waitress at Treasures before it closed, and was back around noon Wednesday calling former bartenders and waitresses, and checking in liquor shipments.

"When it closed I was devastated. I didn't want to go work at another strip club, it was great here. It was heartbreaking," Ringler said, adding she's "very excited" about the reopening.

"In this place the management's great, and it's a great team with all the employees. It's like a family," she said.

The City Council voted 3-2 to give Treasures a liquor license on Wednesday. Councilmen Larry Brown, Gary Reese and Lawrence Weekly voted for granting the license. Council members Steve Wolfson and Lois Tarkanian voted against the liquor license.

Mayor Oscar Goodman and Council Michael Mack abstained from the Treasures discussion and votes. One of Goodman's sons, Ross Goodman, has been the attorney for Treasures' dancers. Mack is a consultant for the club.

And unlike four years ago, this time the liquor license comes with no special conditions.

In 2001, the council approved Treasures' first temporary liquor license after a Treasures attorney promised the club would operate above the law and not fight any city efforts to revoke its liquor license if there was even one conviction for soliciting prostitution.

The license application was contentious because a Metro Police background check found there was a history of prostitution, drug use, and other legal problems at the Texas strip clubs owned by Treasures' owners brothers Ali and Hassan Davari.

Those issues have not gone away, and were raised during the council meeting, as was last year's allegation by Texas authorities that the Davari brothers have engaged in irregular banking practices. At least $2.1 million was seized from a Davari brothers' bank account

Treasures, at 2801 Westwood Drive, opened in September 2003. It closed a year later when its temporary liquor license expired and the council declined to give the club another liquor license after Treasures dancer Jessica Crockett was convicted of soliciting prostitution.

Within a month, Treasures filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the council action.

On Jan. 28 District Court Judge Stewart Bell overturned Crockett's conviction.

Following that legal victory for Crockett and Treasures, attorneys for the city and Treasures hammered out an agreement under which the council would reconsider Treasures' liquor license. And if the council approved the license, and put no conditions on the license unless the Davaris agreed to them, then their federal lawsuit would be dropped.

During the Wednesday council meeting, Councilman Gary Reese suggested Treasures new liquor license include the conditions that all the dancers go through a mandatory training; that dancers go by their real names, and club management use the dancers' real names, when dealing with the police; and that the club discipline its own dancers by suspending them if they find a dancer is breaking the law.

However, after a roughly 10-minute break so Treasures' attorney John Weston could confer with Ali Davari, Weston said that while they will do what Reese wants, they did not agree to have those conditions be a part of the license.

"He and they cannot accept a formal condition that requires them to do what others are not required to do," Weston said.

"I'm very disappointed," Reese said. "They already promised to do this."

Reese said his suggested conditions were "things we couldn't enforce anyway," and didn't further press the issue.

After the meeting, Ali Davari said he hadn't decided whether to make any changes at the club, including whether to make training mandatory or leave it voluntary.

Reese said he decided to vote to give Treasures the liquor license in part because that would end the lawsuit against the city.

"If we deny them and the court says give them a license, then they could sue for damages," Reese said.

Davari would not say exactly how much money Treasures closure cost his company, but he said it was millions of dollars.

Weekly also said he was concerned that if the city denied the liquor license "we could be back in court and they could overturn us anyway."

Brown said Treasures proved itself worthy of a liquor license during the year it was open.

"That year was enough for me," Brown said.

Tarkanian and Wolfson seemed to focus on the Davaris history here and in Houston as the basis for their decisions.

Prior to the council vote, Wolfson said he was "troubled" by the police reports detailing the legal problems with the Davaris' Houston clubs. He also mentioned police reports on Treasures that said there seemed to be an intentional disregard of the city's erotic dance codes and no improvement in the conduct of those at the club during the time it was open.

Tarkanian said she was most bothered by the police reports on the Davaris Houston clubs, and the allegations of irregular banking practices that led to money being seized.

"My concerns are that based on their past history they are not suitable" owners of a liquor license, Tarkanian said. "That past year, I didn't think that was that important because they knew they were being watched."

Heather "Hunter" Chadwell, 29, a dancer at Treasures who was back to work on Wednesday night, said that there were many precautions the club took to prevent any inappropriate touching, such as the training classes.

Speaking at the club at the opening, Chadwell, who has been working at Treasures since it opened, said she didn't understand why the club was closed because it is "one of the cleanest" in Las Vegas. Since moving to Las Vegas from Ohio 2 1/2 years ago, she has worked in six strip clubs as a dancer, she said.

"We just hope the community comes together and gives us a break," she said.

Several members of the Las Vegas community did just that on Wednesday night. By 8:30 p.m., only a handful of men were sitting in the plush chairs inside Treasures, but more were trickling in.

One customer, who identified himself only as Mike A., brought his elderly uncle to the club. He said he had been to Treasures several times in the past and was happy that it was open for business again because it is the "classiest" strip club in Las Vegas.

"I think closing it was the wrong thing to do," Mike A., a resident of Las Vegas for two years, said. "It's no worse than any other club."

His uncle, who identified himself only as "Andy," said the club was "about what I imagined" a strip club would be like.

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