Number of strip clubs in the U.S.?

July 16, 2008 3:42 AM

I had an interesting question at the reference desk the other day and I'm still looking for a way to answer it. The question is, "How many strip clubs are there in the United States?" I tried looking at state websites to determine how they classify businesses and the Bureau of Labor & Statistics site, but didn't have much luck. Do states monitor/license these businesses, and if so, where do they keep these records/stats? Any thoughts on where to find possible answers is much appreciated.
posted by honkytonkgirl to society & culture (9 comments total)

ACE, the Association of Club Executives, the national trade organization for gentlemen's clubs...
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:31 AM on July 16, 2008

Strip clubs are licensed by municipalities. But sometimes smaller cities can have proportionally more than larger cities depending on how lax they are. It will probably take time to flesh out some hard figures but maybe pick yellow pages from 20 or so metro areas to give you a good idea. The Milwaukee Metro area has about twelve clubs.
posted by JJ86 at 6:41 AM on July 16, 2008

Kirth, that organization only seems to have chapters in 22 states.

honkytonkgirl, you might also run into problems in terms of what places are classified as strip clubs. For example, when I was a much younger guy, I worked in the kitchen of a gentlemen's club in New Jersey. State law at the time was - and may still be for all I know - that the girls were actually not allowed to get naked in any place that served alcohol so they danced in the skimpiest bathing suits imaginable*. Is that a strip joint? More importantly for your purposes, would it be reported as such somewhere?

*Admittedly that rule got broken all the time.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:10 AM on July 16, 2008

Unfortunately, NAICS doesn't drill down to that kind of establishment, otherwise you could get a fairly reliable number. The closest they come is Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) which of course is casting way too wide a net. Oddly, they classify "Nudist camps without accommodations" under "All Other Amusement and Recreation Industries."
posted by desjardins at 7:17 AM on July 16, 2008

Do states monitor/license these businesses, and if so, where do they keep these records/stats?

From a stripper friend I understand that the governing laws vary widely from state to state, e.g. as a stripper (not a club owner) in some states she needs a license, in some states she needs a license that's weird or annoying to get, in some states she needs no license, in some states she has to cover the nipples...
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 7:39 AM on July 16, 2008

Yeah, the trouble will be in how strip clubs are classified/licensed/listed.

I checked RefUSA by searching Yellow Pages/SIC listings for "Gentleman's Clubs," and came up with 138 such establishments for the entire country (obviously way off-- there are probably more than that many in certain states alone).

Following their suggested "related headings," I did another search to include Entertainers--Adult, and the results grew to almost 3900, but they included places like adult bookstores and private "house calls" strippers.

An elusive search to be sure.
posted by Rykey at 8:24 AM on July 16, 2008

There are probably 138 clubs just in San Diego! (Military town...) Most states that I know of have some type of licensing, but how you would get at that data, I am not sure.
posted by Futurehouse at 8:30 AM on July 16, 2008

these people seem to have a pretty extensive database: http://nudar.com/
posted by jrishel at 2:55 PM on July 16, 2008

Thanks to all for these responses! I forwarded the link of this thread to my patron. Hopefully it will help with her research.
posted by honkytonkgirl at 4:04 PM on July 16, 2008