Bada Bing is trading bare skin for booze.
The juice bar and only club in Lawrence that features all-nude dancing plans to turn itself into a full-service bar.
That means having the dancers put clothes back on.
"We're not going to be nude anymore, but we will cater to a more gentlemen's kind of atmosphere," said Jacquie Long, manager of Bada Bing, 913 N. Second St. "We're more catered to a businessman. They like to have a nice lunch and a drink while they're on lunch break. They don't want the totally nude part, but they do want the alcohol with the women."
Since May, Bada Bing has served juice and other soft drinks to skirt liquor laws that prohibit nude entertainment in combination with liquor sales.
But later this month, club owner Louis Ribaste plans to add clothing to his dancers in exchange for permission to sell liquor. Entertainers will wear G-strings and pasties to conceal anatomical areas deemed illegal for exposure.
A Tuesday night all-male review also will start later this month.
The idea is to attract more college students to be dancers and customers, said Keith McDuff, who became general manager of the club three weeks ago. The club currently draws up to 150 customers a week, a number he expects to jump by up to 400 percent.
"We're going to get this hot and happening," McDuff said.
The concept is raising eyebrows at city hall. Lawrence city commissioners are scheduled to consider Ribaste's application for a municipal liquor license March 27.
"I'm not in love with the idea at all," Mayor Jim Henry said. "I really don't care for that kind of place springing up or appearing along a major entrance to the city. It sends the wrong message."
But at first blush, city officials said, it appears Bada Bing's business plan would satisfy the city's laws regarding naked dancing and liquor sales.
Clothes even tiny pieces of fabric make the difference.
"Our laws prohibit nudity in establishments that sell alcohol," said David Corliss, the city's director of legal services and an assistant city manager. "Courts interpreting the U.S. Constitution have said that cities cannot prohibit dancing in establishments that sell alcohol."
The issue attracted the city's attention in 1993, when Jeff Wallace opened Juicers at 913 N. Second as a juice bar with nude entertainment. He sold it later that year, as commissioners passed a law regulating such businesses.
Ribaste, former owner of Ziegfield's in Kansas City, Mo., bought it last May and renamed it for the club featured in the HBO mob hit, "The Sopranos."
Adding liquor to the menu will mean lowering the cover charge from $10 to about $2 or $3, McDuff said. Drinks will cost $2 or $3, down from the current $4 for a glass of juice or non-alcoholic beer.
"How can you put that inexpensive of liquor, good-looking girls and a great location on the highway and not do well?" he said. "It's a great combination."
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