MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Attorney: Downtown strip club fight could cost Milwaukee $10 million

Mary Spicuzza

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

This site on N. Old World 3rd St. has been considered for a strip club.

The City of Milwaukee could pay more than $10 million in legal settlements in the fight over opening a strip club downtown, a strip club attorney says.

"As owners of several businesses in the city, we have no desire to see the city lose $10 million or more in legal settlements that will negatively affect city services," attorney Jeff Scott Olson wrote in a recent letter to a downtown business group.

He also dismissed five locations reportedly recommended by the downtown Milwaukee Business Improvement District, saying "none of these locations is appropriate for our needs."

"None is 'downtown,' which is the most basic of our criteria," Olson wrote in his April 19 letter to the BID.

All of them were on or near St. Paul Ave. in the Menomonee Valley area.

Olson added that Menomonee Valley Partners — a nonprofit pushing development in the valley — opposed the sites.

Corey Zetts, the executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners, said it did not hear directly from the downtown business improvement district so it was "a little bit of a surprise" to hear about the proposed sites.

"A strip club does not at all fit with what the valley businesses and greater community are trying to achieve in the valley," Zetts said. "So we would be opposed."

The downtown Milwaukee Business Improvement District said Monday it "cannot in good conscience" recommend a location for a strip club in the heart of the city. The group's latest statement came one week after it was asked for recommendations for alternate locations following a contentious three-hour hearing by the Licenses Committee on the strip club, the "Executive Lounge," proposed for 730 N. Old World 3rd St.

After that meeting, Beth Weirick, the BID's chief executive officer, said business leaders were working on a list of potential locations.

The BID noted that it has opposed five applications over the last five years for a strip club at the proposed location. It described the recent "revival of Wisconsin Avenue," and noted that if the city approves the Old World 3rd St. location, it will do so over the objections of the new owners of the Shops of Grand Avenue, thousands of residents and others.

"A gentlemen's club has no place in the renaissance of Wisconsin Avenue," the BID said.

The group also urged city leaders to zone appropriate locations for strip clubs.

The strip club's attorney called the objection to a downtown location censorship.

"It is clear that you are not opposed to entertainment, per se, but you wish to choose the type of entertainment offered — symphony, good; erotic dance, not good," Olson wrote to the BID. "That is censorship, plain and simple."

Olson did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

The debate over possible locations comes as the Old World 3rd St. plan stalled again last week, with the licenses committee deciding to hold the matter without a yes-or-no recommendation.

Ald. Tony Zielinski has said the issue is scheduled to go before the Licenses Committee again in May.

If the Common Council ultimately agrees to grant the license to the Executive Lounge, strip club owners would drop their lawsuits filed against the City of Milwaukee over past blocked efforts to open clubs in the heart of the city, under agreements club owners signed earlier this month.

The agreements involve Silk Exotic owners, Six Star Holdings LLC, Boardroom Entertainment MKE LLC and Roaring 20's Management LLC. The groups have previously sought to open clubs downtown.

Last year, city officials approved a nearly $1 million payment to Silk due to the years-long fight over opening a location downtown.

The owners of the new club would include Silk's Joseph Modl, Scott Krahn and Radomir Buzdum. Silk's Craig Ploetz would serve as the head of operations for the downtown club.