MERCER COUNTY Group blasts inaction over BYOB nude club

The American Family Association wants action against a local bottle club.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- A Venango County organization took a shot at the Mercer County district attorney for what it believes is his failure to uphold the state's bottle club law.
Diane Gramley, director of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, with headquarters in Franklin, said residents of West Salem Township are upset that District Attorney James Epstein hasn't done anything about Headliners Gentlemen's Club on Pa. Route 18.
The club is a bring-your-own-bottle club that features nude female dancers. Residents voted in the May 20 primary to prohibit bottle clubs.
The club continues to advertise as a BYOB club, despite passage of the voter referendum that should have stopped the presence of alcohol on the premises, Gramley said in a prepared statement. Epstein denied a reluctance to enforce the law.
"If there's a complaint, we'll certainly act on it," he said, adding that neither his office nor the Greenville-West Salem Police Department have received any complaints of illegal activity at the club.
Won't be proactive
Epstein said from the beginning that his office wouldn't take a proactive response to the bottle club issue by launching an investigation. Nor would he encourage Greenville-West Salem to incur overtime expenses to have a police officer sit in the club waiting for a violation to occur, he added.
Epstein said he's received only two calls since the referendum passed 424-206 -- one from Gramley and one from West Salem resident Bill Ferguson.
Gramley's statement indicated Ferguson is upset that nothing is being done to force the closure of Headliners.
Epstein said, however, that there is no law that would allow that to happen. The courts have consistently ruled that type of entertainment is permitted, he said.
Gramley also said Christopher St. John, West Salem township solicitor, isn't informing township supervisors of additional steps they can take to protect the citizens from sexually oriented businesses.
She quoted Ferguson as saying he wants St. John to tell supervisors of the need to enact a licensing ordinance to help regulate sexually oriented businesses.
St. John, a candidate for Mercer County Common Pleas Court this year, couldn't be reached this morning.
The businesses destroy individuals and families, Gramley said.
gwin@vindy.com