Persistent Penn. Group Seeks Shutdown of Mercer County Strip Club
by Jim Brown
August 15, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-family group is continuing its two-year effort to get a strip club shut down in northwestern Pennsylvania. That club, says the group, is operating in violation of a bottle club law. Two years ago, the citizens of West Salem Township overwhelmingly passed a referendum banning "bottle clubs" -- establishments that do not have a license to sell liquor but operate as a "BYOB" (bring your own bottle). However, even though a local strip bar called the Headliner's Club continues to advertise as a BYOB, it has not been shut down by authorities.
Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania is calling on Mercer County district attorney Jim Epstein and the local police to enforce the bottle club law by prosecuting the Headliner's Club. According to Gramley, enforcement of that law is low on Epstein's list of priorities -- but she hopes that will change.
"... I'm hoping that he will feel enough pressure from the citizens there in Mercer County, because it doesn't just affect the ones that are in West Salem Township, but all of Mercer County," Gramley says. "I'm hoping he'll feel enough pressure from the citizens ... to act, to uphold the law. I mean, he is the chief law enforcement officer in the county, and he's not doing his job."
Gramley adds that the club is not only involved in illegal activity but also indecency. "This isn't just a dance club," she explains. "It also has hard-core pornographic videos available seven days a week.
"So it's not just the dance girls on one end," she continues. "The other end has a second business, or second operation, which sells hard-core pornographic videos -- [it] has viewing booths, the whole gamut."
Epstein reports he has referred complaints about the Headliner's Club to Greenville police chief Dennis Stevens, who tells American Family Radio News he will issue the Headliner's Club a Class 3 misdemeanor citation if he is given the okay from Township supervisors.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
