ZUMBRO FALLS, Minnesota — Bring up the topic of Pussycat Cabaret and you’ll get an immediate reaction from people who live here: A scowl, a worried look, laughter or a mischievous grin.

Nearly two months have passed since the strip club opened downtown, a time in which the city and Pussycat have argued their cases in court, residents have worried about the people and the changes the club will bring to town, and talk about Pussycat Cabaret has been constant.

Residents have been calling Mayor Alan VanDeWalker in numbers he’s never seen in his 18 years in office, and the Rev. Dave Neil also hears weekly frustrations from people at Community United Methodist Church.

The pastor and the mayor give different answers to residents clamoring for Pussycat Cabaret to be shut down.

This is the time to turn things over to God and let things work at God’s speed, Neil says.

VanDeWalker offers a more definite timeline.

The city needs to work its way through the legal system, he says.

A judge’s decision on whether the club can stay open is expected in the next two weeks.

‘They haven’t impressed anyone’

Pussycat Cabaret is owned by Jeff and Shakiba Dewitz of Rochester. The city of Austin acquired their Showgirl Saloon, a strip joint, in Austin for $295,000 last year as part of the city’s effort to own all of the properties in a two-block site for Mower County’s proposed jail and justice center.

The club sits in the heart of Zumbro Falls’ tiny business district on Minnesota Highway 60, an area so small that no one has bothered to rename the highway — Main Street, for example, or Broadway — for the quarter mile it runs past the cluster of downtown buildings.

It’s in this area Zumbro Falls residents often gather to socialize and connect. Seniors play bridge at Nette’s Broadway Cafe, churchgoers pray at Christ’s Community Church, and locals socialize at Scooter’s Bar & Grill, where there’s been so much talk about Pussycat Cabaret in recent weeks that owner Scott Deobald says he can’t take it anymore.

“I just want things back the way they were,” he said.

Zumbro Falls is a quiet town, people who live here often say, a nice town that doesn’t need a place like Pussycat Cabaret.

There are others, such as a bartender at the Neptune, who said they didn’t mind the club being in town. It has brought in business, she said.

Then there’s a handful of 20-something locals who said they’ve been to the Pussycat as customers. Younger people are more likely than older people to see the club as no big deal, they said.

The opening of the club obviously was a shock to local residents. Local officials say the club deceived authorities by claiming to be a steak house and it was granted no city permits.

Deception was necessary, the club’s attorney has argued, because the law made it impossible for them to open legitimately.

“If city government didn’t engage in censorship, then adult businesses wouldn’t sneak around,” said the club’s attorney, Randall Tigue, [pictured] who for years has represented nude dancing clubs and other businesses in the adult entertainment industry.

Arguments like that don’t work for Bucky Adams, who owns Valley Bodywerx, an auto repair shop across the street from the club.

Adams describes the club owners’ actions in broad outlines: An outsider with money comes into a small town, tricks people and hires a hotshot attorney to try to force the town into getting its way.

It’s wrong, he says, and people are disgusted.

“They haven’t impressed anyone,” he said.

Four strippers were working at the club on the last Friday night in February, introducing themselves with names like Sophia and Honey. The women took turns disrobing and gyrating onstage to nondescript pop and rock music as a handful of customers looked on. With few prospects for private dances, the others watched network programming on a flatscreen TV or lounged at the bar, offering scattered applause for other dancers between songs.

There are glitzy strip clubs, ritzy strip clubs and miserable dives. Pussycat Cabaret doesn’t fit neatly into any of those categories. It’s small, not flashy, and the decor is aimed at creating an odd kind of red-light-district coziness.

There’s a stage with a pole on one side and the bar on the other. Candles flicker on small, high-top tables that have layered tablecloths. Red light glows from lamps placed around the room, ceiling fans circle overhead, and a fire burns inside a stone fireplace.

Bottles of pop and juice are the only options available for drinks. There is no bombastic DJ introducing the dancers, just a digital jukebox where strippers choose their music before going onstage. The club’s other room, where seating is arranged for “lap dances” is a large, open space through which customers must walk to reach the restroom. Lap dances cost $20, a sign says.

Driving through Zumbro Falls on their way to Red Wing, a pair of middle-aged men walked into the club at around 10 p.m. They balked at the $18 minimum to enter — a $10 cover charge and an $8 mandatory first drink — and went to have a beer at Scooter’s instead.

As they walked into the bar crowded mostly with locals, they passed a group of four men from Rochester. Pussycat Cabaret doesn’t allow alcohol, they said, so they wanted to have a few drinks before checking it out.

The slow business at the club last Friday night wasn’t unusual, according to people who have kept an eye on it.

The number of people coming from out of town to Zumbro Falls has increased since the strip club opened, but the traffic that deputies attribute to the club is fairly low, said Wabasha County Sheriff Rodney Bartsh.

“They’re just not noticing an abundance of people,” he said.

Adams, the auto-repair shop owner, is more to the point. “They don’t have squat for business as far as I can tell,” he said.

Tigue said the club opened just recently and is in the process of attracting dancers and customers. “I don’t know that it’s been particularly slow,” he said. And Bartsh acknowledged that the club’s traffic might pick up as summer approaches.

In the meantime, the sheriff said, he has seen few problems following complaints from Zumbro Falls residents shortly after the club’s abrupt opening Jan. 13. There were two or three complaints of people carrying alcohol from neighboring bars to the club and one report of a fight, Bartsh said.

“The last several weeks, there’s been no reported instances,” he said.

VanDeWalker, the town’s mayor, tells a different story. He says problems have been ongoing at Pussycat and asserts the problem of people carrying alcohol into the club from neighboring bars has continued.

Tigue disputes that, saying anyone trying to bring liquor into Pussycat Cabaret would get kicked out.

Any problems with people bringing alcohol out of bars is the problem of those bars, he said. He added that the city should focus on the bars rather than pointing the finger at Pussycat Cabaret, which he said will help Zumbro Falls by bringing more business to town.

“It (Zumbro Falls) is going to be changed for the better,” he said.

The county is issuing a permit to the club that allows the strip club to serve pop, juice and limited food items such as pre-packaged pizzas, according to Susie West, a Wabasha County environmental health specialist.

The club was serving pop and juice before the permit was finalized, she said, but that was OK because it was going through the permitting process with the county. A Jan. 13 inspection found no major health code violations from a food and beverage perspective, she said.

VanDeWalker says he was falsely told the business would be a steakhouse before it opened. West said the business owners never sought a permit to use the kitchen. “They just wanted to serve juice and pop,” she said.

Tigue said it’s still possible the club might operate as a steakhouse, down the road.

‘Let’s not talk about the cabaret’

Since the club opened, there’s a prayer session every Wednesday night on the sidewalk outside the neighboring VFW hall. The roughly 10-minute gatherings started with just two or three people attending a month ago, but 12 people attended this week, said the Rev. Dave Neil.

“We’re just asking God to be aware of what’s happening in our community and asking him to bless this community,” he said.

The group also prays for the club’s owners, dancers and customers, people who Neil says are being exposed to unnecessary temptation. “We pray that God might touch them and lead them in the way that God wants them to live their lives,” he said.

At Scooter’s, Deobald is steeling himself for the possibility of the strip club remaining in business for years to come. There has been some tension between his bar and the Pussycat, he said, but he hopes things can settle down and they can peacefully coexist.

“Let’s just be neighbors,” he said.

In the meantime, he mused about just how, exactly, he could get people in his bar to stop talking about the competition. Gesturing behind the bar, he joked that maybe a sign is the best solution.

“Let’s not talk about the cabaret,” it would say. “Let’s talk about fishing.”