Sapphire Las Vegas on a night before the pandemic.
The largest strip club in the world, Sapphire Las Vegas, is applying for a state gaming license as well as county clearance to run bar-top video poker machines.
The gentlemen’s club wants to dedicate
1,000 of its 71,000 square feet to video poker despite experiencing a 25% decrease in business as a result of COVID. (Photo credit: lasvegasweekly.com)
The club is seeking for alternative sources of income after experiencing epidemic shrinkage. The Clark County Commissioners are reportedly putting up some pushback against the license, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In their capacity as the Liquor and License Board, commissioners decided on August 2 to put off the decision about Sapphire’s license until at least October. The delay is necessary to give it more time to properly assess whether to waive a 43-year-old regulation that stipulates a 250-foot buffer between a slot machine operation and adult entertainment.
To grant a strip club a gaming license, this exception is necessary. Commissioners are directed to only do so if they are confident that it will not have an impact on the “health, safety, and welfare” of the business’s clients or staff.
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Dance Card No Longer Full
According to the R-J, Sapphire’s estimated 500,000 yearly customers have decreased by 25% as a result of COVID-19 losses. After the state-mandated pandemic shutdown in 2020, strip clubs were among the last establishments to be permitted to reopen.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board received an application for a restricted gaming license from the club’s registered owner, SHAC LLC, in June as restitution. Convenience, supermarket, and bar establishments typically apply for a license that allows a maximum of 15 slot machines.
In a 1,000 square foot portion of its 71,000 square foot club, Sapphire suggested placing 12 poker machines away from the club’s adult entertainment.
The head of the Nevada Resort Association, Virginia Valentine, expressed to the commissioners her concern that granting the license may create a precedent for licensing gaming at further strip clubs. The tendency will have “unintended repercussions,” she claimed. However, two other gentlemen’s clubs in the Las Vegas metro region, Club Platinum and Play It Again Sam, have already been given restricted gaming licenses for slot machines.
Burden of Proof Falls in Sapphire’s Lap
However, according to Jim Gibson, a commissioner for Clark County, Sapphire is the one who must demonstrate viability.
At a meeting of the commissioners on August 2, he stated, “In my opinion, there are really intelligent forms of foundations here that ought to keep different purposes apart. “I would hope that they address that worry as we move forward, because I think it’s on them to carry the ball, that it is actually not only not terrible for us, but beneficial for us to make this exemption,” said the speaker.
Gibson’s son, Brin Gibson, is the head of the Gaming Control Board, which would consider Sapphire’s application for licensing, as the R-J noted.
Since 2003, Sapphire has had a license for an entertainment cabaret. The club is a “upstanding business,” according to David Brown, an attorney for SHAC LLC, who also praised the club’s “excellent working relationship” with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
He contended that since Gaming Control Board agents would now constantly check in on operations, the club would be subject to even more scrutiny as a result of the gaming license.
Rephrased from Sapphire Las Vegas Strip Club Seeks Video Poker Gaming License appearing first on Casino.org.
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