WILLISTON, N.D. — In the wake of the city’s decision to separate exotic dancing from drinking by the end of next week, the owner of this North Dakota oil patch city’s last remaining strip club says he will turn the business into a gathering spot for the LGBT community.
“We’re just going to relinquish our cabaret license,” said Jarod Holbrook of Heartbreakers.
Topless dancers will perform at the club until May 6, after which Holbrook plans to shut down and reopen in mid-May as a gay and lesbian bar.
Plans for the metamorphosis were finalized after Tuesday’s Williston City Commission meeting, where Heartbreakers’ request to continue to operate as a strip club for a year while adjusting to new regulations was nixed by officials.
Grounds for the denial came from new ordinances passed in January that pushed strip clubs into industrial zones and banned the sale of alcohol at such establishments. Following a public hearing and unanimous vote, confusion over whether the new guidelines allowed clubs a subsequent year of operation with both dancing and alcohol service was compounded by a letter sent from the city in February that set a deadline of 90 days for Heartbreakers to surrender either its cabaret or alcohol license.
This week, despite objections from the bar’s attorney, the commission stood by the letter, saying an ordinance banning the combination of exotic dancing and alcohol went into effect immediately after it was passed in the winter.
Holbrook’s reaction was to reinvent.
“We have had a huge response from the gay and lesbian community,” he said, adding that the idea for the bar’s transformation came from “hundreds” of people reaching out.
The business will likely be the only one of its kind in the region, and Holbrook is hoping for suggestions on events, music and even a new name for the bar from the community he plans to serve.
“We’re going to welcome people to come in and talk to us,” he said.
Heartbreakers, one of the city’s two strip clubs, operated on Main Street for about five years alongside Whispers, which featured topless dancers for more than a decade before switching to a sports bar theme after the ordinance change this winter. It is reportedly intending to change its name to “The Penalty Box”.
Now, Holbrook, who said most of his current employees will soon no longer have jobs, feels a dramatic overhaul is the only way to survive.
“For us to try to compete with the other establishments in town, we have nothing new to offer,” he said.
