SAN BERNARDINO - The Flesh Club's owners are pressing on with their efforts to convert the nude cabaret into a risque restaurant.
Attorney Roger Jon Diamond [pictured], who represents Manta Management, the company that owns the club, says his clients are able to convert the Hospitality Lane nightspot into a restaurant that also features topless dancing without the City Council's approval.
"We don't need to come back to the city," he said.
It's still a complicated situation. The Flesh Club's dancers may not have worn clothes, but the cabaret's story is wrapped up in years of litigation and adorned with the details of state and municipal bureaucracy.
Although Diamond maintained that his clients do not need to endure additional council or Planning Commission hearings, Flesh Club's owners are still going through that process.
Why? Because of the intricacies of obtaining a liquor license from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
If Manta Management pursues the type of license needed to run a bar, the company needs the council to affirm that "public convenience and necessity" would be served by allowing Flesh Club to serve alcohol in an area where several restaurants already deal in strong drink.
However, Manta could seek a different type of license that's given to restaurants. If that's the way things go, Flesh Club wouldn't need the city's support.
If either license is obtained, Flesh Club would still be able to feature adult entertainment, said Timothy Clark, district administrator for the ABC office that covers the San Bernardino and Riverside areas.
The ABC is not currently processing a license application for Flesh Club, Clark said.
City Attorney James F. Penman, a Flesh Club foe, said he's not too worried about the club getting an eatery's alcohol license because he predicts the club would have a hard time running a topless restaurant while fulfilling a legal requirement to earn the majority of its sales through food, not alcohol sales.
"As a practical matter, it would be impossible to do it," Penman argued.
Flesh Club is currently closed. Although a court-ordered closure expired in mid-July, Diamond said it's not in his clients' financial interests to reopen the cabaret as a nude-dancing establishment since court-ordered restrictions are still in place that would require dancers to remain on stage and isolated from patrons.
Those restrictions, Diamond said, are the same rules that apply to adult establishments where customers can watch topless dancers while also being able to drink their beer of choice.
"If they're going to have those restrictions, they might as well have alcohol," Diamond said.
