August 2, 2001

1:54 PM

And So It Ends.With Guilty pleas, the Gold Club trial is over. Now the Feds own the most profitable strip club in the country. Will they pave it? Turn it into a wetland? Or set it up for exploratory oil drilling?
posted by dwivian (21 comments total)

It is actually located on some very prime commercial real estate, right next door to a MARTA (rail transit) station, some upscale apartments, and a new BellSouth complex that's going up.

My guess would be a Starbuck's.
posted by PhotoDude at 2:01 PM on August 2, 2001

Providing sex for athletes and laundering money for the mob? Hell, that sounds like my university's athletic department.
posted by nathan_teske at 2:12 PM on August 2, 2001

It's not over. Two of the defendants refused the plea bargains, and for them the trial will continue.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:23 PM on August 2, 2001

Knock the fucking place down. I got so sick of driving round it with the young lady -- the carriageways actually divide on either side -- and seeing its limos and minibuses ("to bring in talent", apparently) and tawdry sheen. It's not as if there aren't enough strip joints "welcoming conventioneers" on Piedmont anyway, none of which carried the veneer of respectability that the Gold Club manufactured.
posted by holgate at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2001

From an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
"Instead, the government is likely to shutter the Gold Club's thick, black doors, fire hundreds of dancers, barkeeps, bouncers and other employees, and sell the pricey Buckhead property. The 1.5-acre corner lot at Piedmont Road and Lindbergh Drive, in the midst of massive redevelopment, could add $2 million to government coffers."
posted by PhotoDude at 3:25 PM on August 2, 2001

Piedmont? Holgate are you sure you live in Atlanta? It seems to me that Cheshire Bridge is where all the low brow clubs you are talking about are located.

I'm happy that this is over, and I hope that all of the publicity didn't reflect negatively on Atlanta. Actually, thinking about it, maybe what Atlanta needs is some bad publicity. This whole thing was about getting publicity for the prosecutors anyway.

It's an ugly building in an ugly section of a mediocre area of town. I hope they tear it down and reconfigure the road there and maybe put it a park.
posted by bump at 3:28 PM on August 2, 2001

Sounds like there already was a lot of drilling going on there. ... at least in the private suites.
posted by darren at 3:31 PM on August 2, 2001

Piedmont? Holgate are you sure you live in Atlanta?

Well, Herself lived in Buckhead, off Lindbergh, and did the driving when I visited, but I definitely remember a cluster of drab strip clubs and sex shops on Piedmont a few blocks down from the Gold Club, and they're mentioned in this listing.
posted by holgate at 3:43 PM on August 2, 2001

Hehe, I should note, for accuracy's sake, that the clubs in debate are actually on the corner of Cheshire Bridge and Piedmont.

Does this whole incident surprise anyone? Is this the sort of thing that people assume is going on in clubs like these everywhere?
posted by bump at 4:50 PM on August 2, 2001

If it's the most profitable strip club in the country, the gubbmint might want to continue running it as a strip club. Could be more profitable in the long run than anything they'd get by selling it.
posted by kindall at 4:56 PM on August 2, 2001

I would pay to see the First Lady and the twins dance the pole.
posted by ewwgene at 5:37 PM on August 2, 2001

Actually, there are a few clubs up the way from Cheshire Bridge Road... Peek-A-Boo's comes to mind, by the Tower Liquor.
posted by FullFrontalNerdity at 5:43 PM on August 2, 2001

Yeah.... up by where the Home Depot Expo used to be, just north of 85. Of course, I don't really know the names of any strip clubs... :). Also down around where the Hot Spot used to be.
posted by kidsplate at 9:51 PM on August 2, 2001

Who cares what they do to Gold Club? Cheetah's much better ;)
posted by PlasticBoy at 5:36 AM on August 3, 2001

Patrick Ewing was very cooperative. Anyone have the video yet?
posted by NJguy at 5:37 AM on August 3, 2001

And you thought it was just the dot.coms adding to the unemployment rosters...
posted by jburka at 6:25 AM on August 3, 2001

The Gold Club is going to be the Clinton Presidential Library.
posted by username at 6:46 AM on August 3, 2001

I wouldn't know anything about the Cheetah, PlasticBoy. I'm proud to say I have managed to avoid all of the cheesy strip joints in the Cheshire Bridge area. Although there was a short period of time when I was working at the Chamber... but that's another story.

Lets just hope that the feds or the city of Atlanta don't try to shut down our favorite adult "novelty" store, Insurrection. Toys, videos, magazines and waterpipe world. What more could one ask for in one location?
posted by FullFrontalNerdity at 8:43 AM on August 3, 2001

So I drove by on my way home from Eatzies tonight, and sure enough, the doors are padlocked. Oddly, the cheesy yellow neon running around the building was on.
posted by bump at 8:48 PM on August 3, 2001

Yeah, I don't know what you all are talking about. Of course, the government will keep it in operation. Apparently it'll be the South wing of Congress....
posted by fooljay at 11:42 PM on August 3, 2001

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority wants the land.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:21 PM on August 4, 2001