Nude feud

St. Helena mired in strip club battle

MONTPELIER — Straddling the village of Montpelier, St. Helena Parish’s two strip clubs have ignited a parishwide battle.

One club owner says the other should be shut down, local pastors want both clubs shuttered, and the parish Police Jury says it lacks legal and financial wherewithal to close either of them.

Oak Ridge Lounge in Pine Grove and The Mansion near Montpelier lie 9 miles apart on La. 16 in a part of the parish dotted with dairy farms, timber tracts, ramshackle houses and small churches. Montpelier’s population hovers around 200, but it has a bank, a feed store, a Western store and a Dollar General.

Oak Ridge Lounge is a large metal building with a gravel parking lot, a cavernous interior, billiard and foosball tables and a square stage in the middle of the room. On a Friday night in January, 10 or so patrons were clustered at the bar on one side of the room, while a dancer wearing only a G-string dangled by her legs from the stage’s pole.

The Mansion is a long, low white building with a horseshoe-shaped bar dominating the main room. On that same night, several topless dancers in heels strutted atop the bar, stopping in front of a dozen or so patrons putting one-dollar bills in garters and G-strings. The website for the club advertises a heated pool available for special occasions.

Both Oak Ridge Lounge and The Mansion — which also features dancers clad in G-strings — are in violation of a 2004 parish anti-nudity ordinance, said Clifton Speed, the Police Jury’s attorney.

Yet The Mansion’s attorney says the club violates no law. And the owner of Oak Ridge Lounge says he is exempt from the ordinance.

The two clubs battle not just for customers but to stay in business.

Bobby Vaughn, who owns Oak Ridge Lounge, wants The Mansion shut down.

Vaughn has taken the fight to parish Police Jury meetings, where he and others have alleged illegal activity at The Mansion.

“We have been coming here week after week,” Vaughn ally Paul Stockton told the Police Jury Jan. 24. “The issue is The Mansion operating against nudity liquor laws. What are you going to do about it?”

Vaughn alleged The Mansion violates a 2004 parish ordinance prohibiting nudity in places that serve alcohol.

Vaughn has offered the Police Jury pictures taken in the bar by a private investigator, and two dark, grainy videos shot with a hidden camera.

Angry opposition

Vaughn is not the only one who wants The Mansion closed.

People have packed Police Jury meetings since December, demanding that both clubs, and especially The Mansion, be shut down.

“Would you want your daughter working there?” St. Helena resident Sue Nesom shouted. “It’s trash!”

The ire of the crowds is not directed exclusively at The Mansion.

Nesom confronted Vaughn outside a Police Jury meeting in January.

“Aren’t you ashamed of what you do?” she asked. “If I was you, I would go home and pray.”

Moments later, Nesom got into an argument with one of Vaughn’s employees.

“I might be 72 years old, but I could still kick your ass,” Nesom said.

“And you call yourself a Christian?” Vaughn’s employee, Jennifer Miller, replied, before the two were separated.

For Rusty Durand, pastor of the Montpelier Baptist Church, the conflict hits close to home. His church sits 2 miles west of The Mansion and 6 miles east of Oak Ridge Lounge.

Durand complained to the sheriff and the Police Jury when The Mansion began showcasing exotic dancers in 2010. He says he has gotten little response.

Durand has frequently spoken at Police Jury meetings about closing the clubs.

“They are allowing Vaughn to break the law,” Durand said in an interview. “He’s breaking the law every time he opens. But the population of St. Helena is under the opinion that (Oak Ridge Lounge) has been grandfathered in.”

Richard Sandberg, pastor of the New Zion Baptist Church in the parish’s northeastern corner, has started a group called the Moral Alliance of St. Helena (MASH).

“Our ultimate goal is that we don’t want any strip clubs in St. Helena at all,” Sandberg said. “We would like to see both places shut down.”

Sandberg was adamant that MASH was not formed just to fight strip clubs, but said the clubs are the most pressing moral issue facing St. Helena Parish.

Organized on social media, the group plans to hold its first public meeting March 4.

Police jury waffles

After Vaughn’s private investigator presented his evidence about The Mansion to the Police Jury in November 2010, the jurors voted 5-1 to hold a hearing about the establishment. Two weeks later, they voted 4-2 to cancel the hearing.

Last December, the Police Jury directed attorney Clifton Speed to draw up an ordinance that would grant The Mansion immunity from the 2004 ordinance.

After a public outcry, jurors a month later rescinded that order.

“What are we planning to do?” Police Juror Major Coleman — in whose district The Mansion lies — asked the crowd during a January meeting. “Legally, we cannot shut it down.”

Coleman’s statement was greeted with catcalls and shouts from the people who packed the meeting room.

Police Jury President Jule Charles Wascom said rescinding the order to grant The Mansion immunity would put the onus on Sheriff Nat Williams to enforce the nudity ordinance.

The enforcer

Williams, however, has been reluctant to take action against The Mansion.

In May 2010, he told the Police Jury that he had investigated the club.

“A young lady came out and did a dance and was clothed,” Williams said, adding “much as what is worn on the beach.”

His observation was confirmed by an undercover deputy who went to the club, Williams said at the time.

Durand said he was incredulous and expressed his disbelief to the sheriff.

“I told him, ‘That’s terrible police work,’ ” Durand said. “You can’t find a naked woman in a strip club? That’s not even trying.”

On Jan. 24, the Police Jury directed Williams to begin enforcing the closing time ordinance, which mandates that alcohol sales stop at 1 a.m.

Williams agreed, but nearly a month later, enforcement had not yet begun.

“We are not singling out the two strip clubs,” said Chester Pritchett, Williams’ chief deputy. “All liquor outlets are going to be subjected.”

Deputies hand-delivered letters to all the parish’s alcohol sellers Feb. 10 informing them of the ordinance, and the first day of enforcement was Friday, Pritchett said.

Durand scoffs at the notion that enforcing the closing ordinance will make any difference.

“This closing law thing is a smokescreen,” Durand says. “Nobody has ever shut them down on time.”

The Facebook page for Oak Ridge Lounge says it’s the “home of the all-nighters.”

The Mansion advertises that it is “Open from 6 p.m. until the party ends.”

The grandfather question

Vaughn believes his club is exempt from the nudity ordinance.

Vaughn says he and his father opened Oak Ridge Lounge in 2000 after moving from Livingston Parish.

In August 2001, the Police Jury passed an ordinance prohibiting businesses that sell alcohol from offering nude entertainment.

The Vaughns sued in federal court, calling the ordinance unconstitutional and overly vague. In 2004, the parish adopted a revised ordinance, the one Vaughn now accuses The Mansion of violating. That ordinance — which forbids in establishments that serve alcohol “the appearance” of genitals, bare buttocks and women’s breasts — remains on the books, Speed said.

The suit over the 2001 ordinance was settled in 2005, with the Vaughns agreeing not to seek reimbursement for their attorney’s fees in return for the Police Jury grandfathering them into the new ordinance.

The Police Jury never passed an ordinance to officially exempt Oak Ridge Lounge, Speed said.

Returning to court?

Vaughn admits The Mansion is hurting his business.

“It splits up the girls in the parish,” Vaughn said. “We don’t have the population for two clubs.”

But he says that’s not the reason he’s fighting to shut down The Mansion.

“The reason I am so upset is because I had to fight for five years in federal court, with them coming at me in all kinds of ways, and spend all that money,” he said. “I make an agreement with them, and they don’t keep their end of the agreement.”

Vaughn’s objective is simple: He wants the Police Jury either to enforce the law, which he says would result in The Mansion being closed, or to repeal the ordinance so he can open a second club if he wants to.

“I own property down the road and I would love to open up another place,” he said.

Timothy Fondren, who represents The Mansion owner Alicia Butler, said the club is perfectly legal.

“The adult cabaret was opened in compliance with parish ordinances,” he said, and will “continue operating in full compliance with the law.”

Any attempt by the Police Jury to close either club could be an expensive fight.

The nudity ordinance is tied to parish-issued liquor licenses that the Police Jury unanimously renewed without debate Jan. 24.

Before the Police Jury could suspend or revoke a liquor license, it would have to hold a hearing, Speed said. Evidence would have to be presented and the club owners given a chance to defend themselves. The process would likely take weeks to arrange and cost a significant amount of money, he said.

“And to the best of my knowledge, the parish has never held a hearing to reprimand, revoke or suspend a liquor license,” Speed said.

Revoking either club’s liquor license could spark another court battle.

Fondren told the police jurors that if they tried to close The Mansion, they would face a legal fight that could be costly to a parish with only a $7 million budget. He noted the litigation against Oak Ridge Lounge cost the parish $300,000.

“The biggest issue is the $300,000 issue,” he added.

Vaughn expressed a similar sentiment. “I would rather it not get to that point,” he said.

But is he prepared to go back to court?

“Definitely,” Vaughn said.