Health club to fight against strip club

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Neighbors said they want a brand-new strip club in the northeast heights gone, but after Monday’s City Council meeting, the fully nude club won’t be stripped of its location. The Palms Gentleman Club will stay open mostly because the majority of City Council members agreed that a nearby gym’s child care program doesn’t count as a school.“Is a fitness center a school? Has anyone ever held that a fitness center is a school? It’s almost preposterous to make that claim,” Palms attorney Roger Diamond said.
From the beginning the controversy has been over the club’s location. The Palms club is right across the parking lot from a Defined Fitness and a Chili’s. The gym’s attorney argued that their child care program qualified them as a day care, meaning the strip club would be a no go because it was within 500 feet of a pre-elementary service.“I think that could be a school. If a day care is a school, then that is a school,” City Council President Don Harris said. Harris said the gym’s 10-week summer program, where kids spend hours learning, sure seemed like a school to him. But most council members said that the gym didn’t advertise itself as a school and doesn’t have the proper permits or licensed teachers on staff.All of that means the club is here to stay.
The club also pointed out that it’s creating up to 40 local jobs. The gym said those jobs are coming at the expense of the hundreds of families that use their workout facility on a daily basis.The Palms will not serve alcohol because it’s fully nude.