New York City’s popular haunt M2 continues to come under fire from the city for what one official calls “flouting the city’s ban on smoking.” The nightclub went before a special administrative court last week. Five other venues found in violation of the smoking ban have settled with the city; M2 is the only venue still battling. “We found places with repeated nights of smoking, with sort of flagrant violations — selling cigarettes, clearly creating an atmosphere in which smoking appeared to be tolerated or even welcomed,” Daniel Kass, the acting deputy commissioner for environmental health, told The New York Times. “Those places are clearly not responding to the idea that we’re going to fine them periodically for violations.” Robert Bookman, an attorney for M2, told the Times: “The law is being misconstrued by the health department purposely to make it sound like it’s an automatic violation for a club having a patron smoking on their premises. All the law says is that we have to make a good-faith effort to inform patrons that they were breaking the law, and not with a nod and a wink.”
Jersey Shore reality TV star Pauly Delvecchio aka DJ Pauly D, stopped by the Palms Casino Resort Las Vegas this past weekend for a DJ gig at Ghostbar and reportedly left with a lot more. It’s being whispered that he has signed an exclusive DJ residency with the N9NE Group, nightlife operators of The Palms. If it’s true, it makes him an interesting third resident DJ at the property, following internationally known superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold and America’s Best DJ, DJ Z-Trip.
While Rick’s Cabaret operates in a different shade than most other nightclubs in the country, we always find it an interesting indicator because, as a publicly traded company, it publicizes its numbers. For the month of February, the cabaret operator announced sales of $7.65 million, up 34 percent from the same month last year. It also announced that revenues at clubs open more than 12 months were up 28 percent from last year. "We had the anticipated positive results during the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl weekends in Miami and the NBA All-Star Game in Dallas, which together contributed an estimated $1 million in additional revenues," Eric Langan, president and CEO of Rick's Cabaret International, said in a press release.