Are you seeing stars?

Lake Grove area now must contend with Stars Cabaret

By Ed Johnson

The Lake Oswego Review, Nov 28, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

JAIME VALDEZ / lake oswego review

Stars Cabaret server Karli Hebisen, 23, who was a pharmacy technician, talks with a customer at Stars’ new location near Lake Grove.

ADVERTISEMENTS

In the hours before its grand opening on the night of Nov. 19, Stars Cabaret at Bridgeport was bustling with activity.

At least 20 workers were whittling away at various tasks that needed to be finished before the night’s big party. The club’s managers were expecting hundreds of people, and everything had to be just so. Tualatin’s second strip club was opening its doors.

A group of four men were installing what looked to be an intensive lighting system at one of the room’s three stages. A few more carefully applied Windex and elbow grease to a battery of mirrors mounted in the other corner. The place has a lot of mirrors.

Randy Kaiser, one of the club’s co-owners, pressed off his iPhone after dealing with a last-minute permitting issue – something about fire alarms – and pondered the journey it took to get to this point.

“We’ve been working on this for over a year,” he said. “And it’s finally happening.”

In this case “working on” means battling a downpour of negative community reaction, including a mayor, police department and city council who actively opposed the project, saying that it would bring more crime to the city, and a liquor commission that wasn’t exactly gung-ho either.

Sentiment from Lake Oswego – Stars Cabaret is on the Lake Grove side of Interstate 5 – also was negative.

Kaiser has dealt with this reaction before when he opened up other locations of his chain of clubs – Bridgeport will be the fourth Stars, besides those in Bend, Salem and Beaverton. Nude dancing is a protected form of free speech under Oregon’s constitution. At this point, he said, he welcomes any attention the business gets, even if it’s negative.

1 | 2 Next Page >>