75% Of Town's Tax Base Comes From Strip Clubs, Massage Parlor & Adult Bookstore

[DeSwiss]

Adult industry gives thousands back to tiny Brooklyn

By Angie Leventis
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/09/2007

Brooklyn — About a dozen teen and preteen girls raise their hands above their heads and then down to their chests, pressed palm against palm in prayer. Songs about belief, virtue and the love of Jesus play in the background. The praise dancers, students in a faith-based dance troupe, perform for a crowd of 150 classmates and parents at an evening assembly in the Lovejoy School gymnasium.

Six blocks away, several young women at Roxy's raise their hands above their heads and shake their hips on dimly lit stages to Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker." They strip down to the stilettos on their feet. Men pay to watch and touch them as they dance. These are the two worlds of Brooklyn, an eight-square-block village of about 600 people just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

The village has no industry to speak of except for the adults-only variety — four strip clubs, a massage parlor and an adult bookstore, whose suggestive signs beacon passers-by on Route 3. Cars with Missouri license plates fill the parking lots at night and disappear by daylight. Here, risqué businesses and children are oddly and inextricably linked. Strip clubs help send local kids to trade school or college. They pay for after-school programs and youth outings. And without adult entertainment, it's unlikely this village could survive financially.

The X-rated world contributes roughly three-quarters of Brooklyn's $380,000 in revenue through sales tax and a $30,000 annual licensing fee per business. Mayor Nathaniel O'Bannon says he is pursuing an adult entertainment tax to get the clubs to finance street repairs, public safety and other city services.

more: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/0EC0FE6E9E3E4279862572F5001A8511?OpenDocument

*** - So the "Praise-Dancers" are praying for the strippers to find Jesus. And if they're successful, the result will be no more "Praise-Dancers." Ironic, isn't it???

[LostInAnomie]

1. I guess all those dollar bills I tuck really add up.

Who knew there was a town made completely of young women just trying to pay their way through college?

[LiberalFighter]

2. I'm against strip clubs BUT they better not bad mouth the businesses

if they are taking their money.

Damn that $30,000 is an expensive license fee to pay every year. But I'm sure they are easily able to make well over the average $82 each day to pay the fee.

[madrchsod]

3. first black town in the usa

median income in 2005 -18,000 dollars....

[no_hypocrisy]

4. So THAT'S where all the businesses on 42nd Street moved when Rudy

"cleaned up" Times Square. I always wondered where they went to.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I went out with a woman from St. Louis who danced in Brooklyn.

Jeebus, that town did a number on her head. A really strange place.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Good. It's not like the churches have to pay taxes.

They can sit there, tut tut and cluck their tongues for free.

[Gman]

7. Sounds like Pottersville

Pottersville Rocks!

[KG]

8. kinda reminds me of what happens here in FL

there are several up-scale clothing option resorts in s. pasco co.

every once in awhile the local moralizers make a stink about them. the county commisioners look at the tax revenues these resorts bring in, and tell the moralizers to go fuck thenselves. quite amusing process to watch.