Looking for a conversation? Go to the strip club!

The controversial Center City strip club Signatures is in the news again, but this time it’s for not having any naked girls on stage. The Liquor Control Board ruled early last year not to renew the club’s license it needed to operate a strip club, so the only bare thing inside Signatures right now is the stage. (The LCB banned dancing? This is just like Footloose! Somebody get Kevin Bacon in here, STAT.)

The LCB’s ruling cited consistent “lewd conduct” at Signatures, which begs the question: What else do people go to strip clubs for?

Still, it’s not like Signatures hasn’t been in the news before. Fellow PW writer Steve Volk details all the previous aspects of this controversy: the club’s hiring of a consultant who was linked to a federal racketeering case with the notorious Gold Club in Atlanta (that’s where all the pro athletes went, so you know there was a lot of lewd conduct going on), the protests of the East of Broad Improvment Association and the building itself, which is owned by Common Pleas Court Judge Frank Palumbo Jr.

The club hasn’t closed, though, having dancers meet people for “conversation” and trying to entice customers to buy lap dances. (I’d guess any customers not buying lap dances won’t last too long in there.) And having private lap dances might not be legal, anyway, so it looks like the club could be on its last legs.

But you kind of have to admire a club that loses its stripping license, yet remains open. That’s some good old-fashioned American capitalist spirit. Horatio Alger would be proud.

No More Stripping? [PW]