Right now!
In explanation with regard to your confusion "Question of the Day" tends to be a somewhat fluid/challenging feature to schedule, as sometimes an answer is delayed by one key research resource being on vacation and not filling in their part of the puzzle, or a topical news story dictates a timely answer to an entirely different QoD that someone had submitted. Or some other urgent project or temporary crisis will totally consume our time and plans for in-depth research into something -- and take our word for it that some queries may be deceptively simple at first site, but the majority are both time- and labor-intensive -- become derailed. And sometimes the email has already been set up purporting to link to one answer, which then gets changed in the interim.
In the case of this particular answer, we're pretty sure we postponed it because of the unforeseen delay of our new 18+ sister site, ToplessVegasOnline.com, in coming online. We wanted it to be live when we tackled such a relevant QoD. Plus, there's actually a lot to research and write about this topic...
As far as Las Vegas is concerned, while there have been topless burlesque shows, some of which have really pushed the envelope, topless dealers with pasties (the Silver Nugget!), a topless pool operated by a gentlemen's club, and apparently a fish tank featuring three daily performances by nude showgirls, there has never been an actual gentlemen's club on-property at any casino, although Henderson's Railroad Pass apparently operated in part as a speakeasy and brothel, catering to workers on the Hoover Dam in the '30s.
A few years ago, more mainstream Strip nightclubs started to push the envelope and cross the line with the addition of stripper poles that both staff and inebriated patrons would perform on, but any casino property has its precious gaming license to think of, and both Planet Hollywood and Venetian/Palazzo wasted little time in evicting their raunchy nightlife tenants, in Prive and The Act, respectively, when the accusations of public indecency started to fly.
The stripper pole in the middle of Flamingo's former topless GO pool didn't last long, either, since it turned out to be against topless-pool regulations, and the experiment with Sapphire gentlemen's club operating a topless pool at the Rio was a notorious disaster, ending in its abrupt closure amid charges of prostitution, illegal drug activity, and so on.
The 1,500-gallon fish tank we referred to was in a bar at the Castaways, a previous hotel that in the early '60s occupied the spot now taken by Mirage, while when we referenced topless revues "pushing the envelope," it recalled to mind an email we received from a reader who remembered seeing a show at the Plaza, where the venue basically converted into a strip club afterwards. He'd forgotten the name of the show, which we identified as something from veteran Vegas performer/producer Karen Denise, which debuted as Hot Trix before soon morphing into Pete Barbutti and his Naked Angels. Here's what a QoD reader recalled about his experience at that particular performance:
In late 1990s or early 2000s I went to show at the Plaza downtown. It was called Avenging Angels or something like that with Angels in the title. I had read about this show in Casino Player magazine. When my friend and I entered the showroom, the guy who took the tickets asked us, 'Do you guys want to stay around after the show? The showroom basically becomes a stripclub and it is all the free beer you can drink.' This was a no-brainer. I actually got a full-contact lap dance in one of the darker parts of the showroom. My friend and I couldn't believe it. Free drinks AND lap dances from the girl you just saw in a regular show? This production closed a month or two later (but not before I saw it one more time!).
We've written on several prior occasions about the burlesque revue in the Jolly Trolley (a former occupant of the famous Bonanza Gift Store building at the Strip and Sahara). Here's a quote from the QoD we ran of 5/4/2012:
Then there was the Center Fold Casino, which operated from 1975 to '77 in the lot at the corner of Sahara and the Strip where the Bonanza Gift Store still resides, and which subsequently became the Jolly Trolley and remained in business until 1981. Aside from being a former butcher shop and a notorious grind joint, in both incarnations this casino's principal claim to fame was for being the only casino in Las Vegas, to date, with a bona fide strip club inside.
Advertized on the marquee as "Naked But Nice," the burlesque show featured a succession of strippers on a stage at the edge of the pit, dancing to raunchy popular music, with a lineup that would sometimes include fairly well-known strippers and porn stars from the era, including Dusty Summers and Marilyn Chambers. Other featured acts included the Fantasy Follies and the Loose Caboose Comedy Players.
Initially, the burlesque performance was a free show for all casino players to enjoy, but at some point a curtain was put around what became known as the Loose Caboose stage, and a $3 fee to watch was introduced (Kill Phil author Blair Rodman recalls sneaking peaks through the curtains when he was a young newbie in town.) In the early '80s there was trouble with mobsters from New Jersey trying to infiltrate the joint, and it closed shortly thereafter, ending one of Las Vegas' rare experiments with casino nudity.
Whether pre-revolutionary Cuba had any strip clubs in its casinos, we're not sure, but it's pretty likely knowing how wild the scene was down there in the '50s; however, the only strip club inside a casino that we're aware of is in Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal. It was back in 2010 that it was announced the property wanted to open a Score's gentlemen's club and it took another three years to come about, but in July 2013, here's what we wrote in "Today's News":
Trump Taj Mahal is gearing up to become the first casino in the U.S. with a strip club inside. New York-based Scores is expected to open a $25 million 36,000-square-foot club in August. It will be located on the second floor of the Taj. Dancers will not be topless, as rules require g-strings and pasties. "Modified lap dancing" that is devoid of touching will be allowed.
With the future of the Taj Mahal now in question, perhaps the latest victim of Atlantic City's casino woes, who knows how long even this "strip club with training wheels" will be around for?
Meanwhile, for an interesting history about the birth of lap dancing, check out the recent article by Arnold Snyder at ToplessVegasOnline.com.
