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You might be able to at somepoint, maybe not rent a girlfriend for
the evening, but at least havea temporary girlfriend get to some certain state
of disrobing, perhaps dancing for you, if certain folks in the town of
Central City get their way with aproposal to allow a small subset of what
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they call sexually oriented businesses to dobusiness in Central City. And yesterday we
had the mayor of the town on, Jeremy Fay, and he struck me
as a supporter, although not atable pounding, big cheerleader supporter, but
kind of a slightly reluctant supporter,but supporter nevertheless of allowing some of these
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changes. So joining us for theother perspective, Zane Plisik is a concerned
resident of Central City, and Zanespends a lot of time being involved in
the community and going to the citymeetings and volunteering for organizations and so on.
And so Zane, welcome to Kawa, and thanks for making time for
us, well, thanks for havingme. So first of all, before
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we get to whether you well whatyou oppose, can you give us the
details of just what you think isbeing proposed, because there seems to be
a little bit of the controversy aboutthat, or at least overstatement about it
in an article that I read.According to Jeremy Well, there's lots of
rumors and then there's lots of facts, and basically, what the residents and
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the existing businesses of Central City areconcerned about is the opening and operation of
a strip club in the historic downtownMain Street area of Central City. That's
what we are concerned about, andthat's what we would like to not see
happen. I guess this question isn'tvery important, but I'm gonna ask it
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anyway as these conversations are going along. Is there already a particular building,
a particular location that you think whoeverthey are have in mind for this possible
business or is this more of aconceptual question right now? Well, RCI
Hospitality owns a building on Main Streetthat's they're going to open as Rix Cabaret.
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And initially they came into town.They purchased a number of properties,
and they came into town with theintent of opening a casino restaurants in the
proposed build in the buildings that theythat they bought. And when they ran
into trouble with the Gaming Commission onobtaining a gaming license and have been told
that, you know, it's goingto take a long time. There's lots
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of investigation needs to be done becauseof the type of businesses they are currently
involved in. They have then pivotedback to taking the Rix cabaret buildings that
they have at the entrance to MainStreet and converting that into a steakhouse strip
club without gaming. Okay, AndI'm just going to ask a wide open
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kind of question here, why doyou object to it? Well, I
don't think that a strip glove oran sob as they're referred to as any
place in the historic downtown district ofCentral City. And it's not just me,
it's the residents that live here thatare very concerned about it, in
the existing businesses and the casinos thatare also on Main Street that are very
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concerned about opening up a sexual orientedbusiness in what is a beautiful and lovely
historic area of Central City. Ishow much of your objection is due to
a fundamental objection to that kind ofbusiness, so that you would object to
it anywhere, versus a strong feelingthat that kind of business is deeply incompatible
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with the appearance and or culture ofCentral City. I think rip club is
a legal business where it's supposed tobe legally allowed. I don't have an
opinion against the strip. What myissue is, and the issue of the
residents and businesses of this town is, is that it doesn't belong where they're
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proposing to put it on Main Street. It isn't compatible with the historic nature
of that downtown historic district and thecurrent businesses that are on that street.
What if the rules that permitted itsaid that as far as what is visible
from the street, it wouldn't looklike anything other than a restaurant, and
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there wouldn't be any you know,half closed or even fully closed, like
strippers in the window or anything likethat. It would just look like a
restaurant. And in order to accessany of that, to see any of
that, you would have to beinside. I you know, I don't
know whether you know they talked aboutthey'll black out the windows, and they're
going to do this. They're goingto be very incog I don't know whether
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that will I don't know whether thatwill continue if they aren't doing the business
they think they should be doing.I just don't think it goes back to
the point of I don't think it'scompatible with where they want to put it.
If you if you can go back, and you know, I've looked
at the Supreme Court cases that keepbeing referenced in this issue. And I'm
no legal scholar, I'm not aconstitutional attorney, but I can you know,
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read legal opinions and understand them.And and yes, you know,
there's the first case for the SupremeCourt said that the zoning that essentially bans
SOB from operating anywhere in the municipalityis unconstitutional. Ok. Great, But
they also been ruled subsequent to thatthat says the municipality does not have to
let sobs operate everywhere. The arealeft for solbs to operate, you know,
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needs to be commercially available space,and that could be done anywhere that
so SOB operator can sit for themselvesin the real estate market on equal footing
is of the businesses and the abilityto obtain a retail space and the principal
area would not give it rise toa first animent violation. Central City can
very easily do exactly what our neighborBlackhawk did, and that is a couple
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of years ago blacklowk designated an areain an industrial zone and said Okay.
If you want a sexuority business,it can go here, Okay, and
you could do the same thing.So does Central City? Is Central City's
geography? And I've been there.I used to live just outside Netherland,
and I've been to Central City inBlackhawk quite a few times. And as
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I mentioned to Jeremy yesterday, I'veactually come to kind of like opera because
of the Central City Opera. Butstill, I'm not expert on your geography.
So does Central City have a geographythat would be conducive to the solution
that you just described. Yes,there's property that could that is zoned industrial
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up along the Parkway. I'm notsure exactly where it is, don't I'll
have an okay, but there's itdoes drill zones within the Central City envelope
or the Central City control that youcould say at SOB could operate here.
But again, you know, theSOB then has to negotiate to get the
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property, to build the property,to have it operational. Sure, that's
not on the city to provide that, right Right, we're talking with Nay
in place that Ki he is concernedresidents of Central City who opposes allowing sexually
oriented businesses aka a strip club toset up business at least in the kind
of the heart of the main streetof Central City, Colorado. I want
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to go back to the question Iasked and just dig in a little bit
deeper. Well, if I askyou to assume as a metaphysical certainty that
from the street this establishment wouldn't looklike anything other than a restaurant, and
you knew that would be true,just go with me as that hypothetical.
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I'm trying to understand what about thatwould leave you continuing to object to it
unless you think that that kind ofbusiness brings in a different type of customer
that you don't want in that partof town. That is exactly the point,
you know, I don't know ifthat clientele is conducive to the historical
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nature of Main Street and Central City. There are studies, there are issues.
Does it bring in additional crime?Does it bring in are we going
to have to have a bigger policepresence, sheriff's presence to help regulate and
make sure that everything down there remainssafe. That's that's exactly the issue.
It's the clientele. It brings inthe subsequent problems that clientele could possibly bring
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in and I buy that as apotentially legitimate argument. I don't have a
protect I don't have a prediction asto whether it would work out in that
negative a way, but I can'timagine that it might. I definitely can
so well. I read somewhere andI don't know if this is true that
Central City doesn't have its own policeforce. Is that true or not true?
We contract out with the county forsheriff does not have its own city
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police Does that really matter? Oris the Guilden County sheriff all you really
need for law enforcement? Well,the Guildha County Sheriff provides really good law
enforcement for this town. But Igot to think that if a strip club
ourd SOB opens and subsequent problems happen, he's going to want to have additional
funding to fund additional officers and additionalequipment to react to that. So I'm
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sure. I mean, I can'tguarantee it, but I'm sure that when
the sheriff comes back to the cityin December for the budget for the following
year, he's going to say,hey, you know, I need this
much more money, and that wouldoffset any potential revenue that the city is
going to be gaining from any ofthis sales for food and alcohol in that
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particular establish So I don't. It'sjust there's going to be a cost involved
to this. Now I know exactlywhat that cost is, No, I
don't, but trust me, there'sgoing to be an increased cost to maintain
this. Yeah, and you kindof anticipated my next question a little bit,
which is, you know, whatdo you make the argument that having
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a business that attracts new people tothe town, put aside for a second
the potential that they're not the peopleyou want in the town. Just hold
that aside for sec that that thatcould generate more revenue to the town and
help the city budget and allow thecity to provide other services or improve certain
things in the town. It soundslike that argument in going too far with
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you. Well, the issue iswhere we're going to get more revenue for
this city is going to be throughgaming. That's where you get you know,
the licensing fees on the machines andall that. That's really where the
city is going to get it.It's a lump, good lump share of
additional funding. I'm not sure howmuch funding the city is going to see
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on the small percentage that they getfrom liquor and food and beverage tax.
It's a small, small percent.I don't know what the exact number is,
but it's nowhere near the revenue gainyou get gaming. That's why gaming
was brought in, and we broughtin years ago to help revitalize historic towns
that were that were falling apart anddidn't have the money right, And that's
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where the money is where you goingto come from. I don't have a
problem, and I don't think theresidents of the city has a problem.
If Artio puts up a casino,that's great. This strip club is not
going to do it for us.I'm curious, and I don't know.
If you're expert enough on this,they'll probably make this our last question.
See interest in the interesting time here. But you know, Blackhawk is enormous,
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and there's all these tall buildings andtrying to be like a mini Vegas
sort of thing. And then CentralCity, which is lovely and charming and
in a gorgeous little mountain, alittle classic Western town. And like I
said before, I loved the OperaHouse. But you know, their city
budget is something like your city budgetis something like a tenth of the budget
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of Blackhawk, which is literally astone's throw away. Is Central City trying
to be bigger? Do you aspireto be maybe not Blackhawk, but more
towards that direction. Well, Ithink, you know, Blackhawk, go
back into history, Central City wasmore of a city with residents and all
of that. Well, before Blackhawkwas Blackhawk, it had mines, it
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had stamp mills, so they wereable to basically move their historic town around
or demolished buildings or whatever they did, and be able to build these big
skyscraper you know, Central City didn'thave that luxury being able to do that.
We kept our central we kept ourhistoric town, we had more residents.
So it's not the same thing.We don't aspire to be Blackhawk.
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We can't be Blackhawk. We don'thave the square footage, we don't have
the ability to build those monster casinos. And I don't think anybody that lives
here once that had those big monstercasinos here. So it's really not the
same thing. I get it.Okay, last quick thing, do you
have a prediction? Well, theresidents and existing businesses don't want this here,
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and I would hope that the councilwho are supposed to represent the residents
and the businesses will follow along withwhat the residents and the business is wanting.
I do want to add one ofthe things that has never been brought
up. If I have admitted todo that go ahead, was one of
the things that hasn't been brought upis the potential conflicts of interest in some
of the ethics questions that have beenarisen between Mayor Fay and the RCI organization.
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I mean, Mayor Fay and hispartners sold the building in September of
twenty twenty three to RCI, wherethey made a ninety thousand dollars profit.
God bless them. Everybody can makea profit. Mayor Fay also operates a
retail establishment in a building that areCI owns, and Mayor Fay has admitted,
along with the CEO of RCI,that they flew Mayor Fay on the
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RCI private jet to an event,a sporting event in Houston, which RCI
paid for everything on Mayor phase behalf. And that is a direct contradiction to
ethics rules which say a public officialcan accept the seventy five dollars a gift
in excess to seventy five dollars froma person that has business in front of
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that city, and in lieu ofthat, myself and another resident here in
town have filed an ethics complaint withthe Independent Ethnics Commission on this to have
them determined, because they're the expertswhether that is really an ethics and a
conflict of interest violation. Now,all we're asking Mayor Fay to do in
the meantime before this decision can bediscussed or rendered, is that he recused
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himself from any involvement or any decisionmaking involving the city and RCI. I
just think that's the ethical and theright thing for him to do, and
we hope that he does that.All right, I think that's I didn't
know any of that, you know, assuming you're telling the truth, and
I do assume that. It seemslike a fair point to me. I'm
going to ask you one last thing, because I literally have ten listener texts
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all on the same message. Andyeah, so a whole bunch of people
are saying Central City had brothels fora long time. Maybe not very recently,
but Central City had brothels, Andso what's all this preciousness about not
wanting a sexually oriented business in atown that had them for many, many
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years. Well, let's go backto Central City's history. This was an
outlaw town. It had prostitution.It also had knife fights and gunfights in
the street, and that's what wewere. And then to acknowledge that that's
what happened in this townus is whatwe should acknowledge it. Does that mean
we want to repeat any of thattype of behavior going forward? Is it
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what the city wants to be nowor in the future. And I would
say that answer is no. ZanePlaisik is a concerned resident of Central City,
Colorado. He opposes allowing sexual orientedbusinesses in the heart of Central City
on Main Street, but is opento the idea of allowing them in the
more industrial areas just slightly further awayfrom the heart of town. Zaan,
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and I appreciate your time. Iappreciate the conversation. Really good stuff.
Thank you so much. Well.I appreciate Klas following up on this,
and please keep this in the frontof mind. And I'm willing to talk
at anytime. Okay, you gotit. Thank you say