The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

'Gentlemen's Club' May Find Home in Madison

September 17, 2010 - MADISON -- A husband-and-wife team want to bring a club featuring topless women to town.

The "gentlemen's club," as it is described in the initial planning permit application, would be at 197 White School House Road, about three miles from the downtown area.

In a phone interview, the owner Ernest George said he would provide more information about the club's entertainment after a planning board meeting on Tuesday, but that his attorney at Shiro & Shiro in Waterville advised him not to comment at this time.

"It's in the delicate stages right now. We don't know what we can do, what the town will allow us to do," he said.

Robert Dunphy, Madison's code enforcement officer, said he also does not yet know details but that "I don't think they're going to sit in there and drink beer and talk theology."

Full nudity would break town ordinance, he said, but there is the possibility that "it could be topless."

"There is a very, very, very strict ordinance as far as provocative, erotic stuff," he said. "My impression is you're not going to do any stripping or pole dancing in the town of Madison."

Planning board members are scheduled to discuss Ernest and Shannon George's preliminary commercial site review application at their meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the town office.

According to the application, the George family would construct a gravel parking lot on a section near the road, with the 30-by-32-foot, single-story business behind it, located off the dirt driveway. The family currently lives on a portion of the property located farthest from the road.

There are two properties adjacent to the potential business site. One is Madison Automotive and Recreation, owned by Dennis Johnston, who said he is opposed to topless entertainment.

"I don't believe in exploiting people," he said. "I don't think it would hurt my business, but it would hurt my soul."

The obscenity ordinance has never before been at issue with the planning board, said its chairman, Doug Denico.

"We've never handled that ordinance. We never have. That will be a new one," Denico said.

The purpose of the ordinance, it reads, is "to prohibit certain acts of commercial exploitation of human sexuality in commercial or business establishments ... in order to reduce the likelihood of criminal activity, moral degradation, sexually transmitted diseases and disturbances of the peace and good order of the community."

Planning board members -- who normally mull issues such as parking, outdoor lighting, erosion and drainage -- now will have to check the obscenity ordinance against the business's proposed activities, Selectman George Elias said. It will likely require an attorney's advice.

"What I don't believe people understand is if someone comes into town and meets all the town's criteria, I don't believe we have the right to say, 'You can't be here.' How do I think about it? Like anything else, if I don't like it, I don't have to go there," he said.

by Erin Rhoda, Kennebec Journal, September 17. 2010

Lakes:
Regions: Belgrade


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News