Strip clubs making it rain on politicians

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

“All of the liquor, none of the clothes!” the billboards promise.

Take a drive across the south suburbs and you know:

Strip clubs are big business.

But it’s not just nude girls and club owners making money. Thousands of those dollar bills have found their way into campaign coffers across Cook County.

A SouthtownStar analysis has tracked where this money flows. For some politicians, the results were troubling.

A spokeswoman for County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the campaign would return $2,000.

Northridge-based Allstars Gentlemen’s Club, which burned down in December 2010, donated the money to Preckwinkle for President earlier that year. Preckwinkle spokeswoman Jessey Neves said the contribution was made during a fundraiser that brought in just under $30,000 for a campaign that raised about $3.5 million.

According to Neves, Preckwinkle is going to return the money due to the “nature of the business.”

“We’re not financially dependent on that amount,” Neves said.

But others say donations are fair and legal — just like the clubs themselves.

Former Chicago Heights mayor and current State Rep. Anthony DeLuca (D-Chicago Heights) has received in his two political committees $2,000 from Jimmy’s Restaurant and Club 390 since 2005.

DeLuca is the chairman of Friends of State Rep. Anthony DeLuca and the Unity Party for Anthony DeLuca.

City chief of staff Matt Fares is the treasurer of those committees.

He didn’t see a problem with the strip club money.

“Whether someone is in the adult entertainment business or someone in the garbage business or someone in the printing business, there’s many people who contribute money who are involved in all types of business,” DeLuca said. “Just the fact that they are in the adult entertainment business, it doesn’t exclude them from being in the political process either.”

Not everyone agrees of course. The clubs, while attracting thousands of customers as legal businesses, often bring scrutiny from religious and community groups.

“I think politicians know that the center of strip clubs is very close to prostitution,” said Michael Murphy, University of Illinois-Springfield associate professor of women and gender studies. “If you had a degree from Harvard, you wouldn’t be shaking it. Neither would I.”

Does money buy power?

Thomas Amadio, a former manager of Sharkey’s, a now-defunct club owned by his family, said there’s a reason strip clubs will pony up the cash to politicians.

“To gain political favor with them and to get help for problems that occur — with liquor licensing, underage dancers who come in with fake IDs ... fights, drugs,” said Amadio, a Chicago Heights park district commissioner. “To keep the police off their back. That’s why they’re doing that.”

Chicago Heights Police Chief Michael Camilli called the charge “absurd,” saying that no amount of money will keep his investigators from charging criminals.

“The police department has made arrests,” he said. “We continue to make arrests when there’s appropriate evidence to show there’s criminal activity at those locations. It’s our job.”

Donations from the two strip clubs didn’t stop DeLuca, the former Chicago Heights mayor, from leading the City Council to pass a per-person tax on the city strip clubs in 2004.

He also threatened to take away Jimmy’s Restaurant’s liquor license in 2006 based on an ordinance passed in 1996 prohibiting a strip club from being within 300 feet of Lincoln Highway. This threat was never acted upon.

In any case, no one can deny that strip clubs with the proper licenses are legal businesses.

The breakdown

In Chicago Heights, where two of the top-donating strip clubs are located, mayoral candidates Joe Faso and David Gonzalez both have been on the receiving end of strip club money from Jimmy’s Restaurant.

Indirectly, Gonzalez received $1,500 in Jimmmy’s Restaurant contributions from political committees belonging to the late Mayor Alex Lopez, who died in August. Money from Lopez’s committees were transferred to Gonzalez’s committee supporting his mayoral bid.

Following Lopez’s death, money from both committees — approximately $65,000 — was transferred to Gonzalez’s committee, on Jan. 18.

Gonzalez said the SouthtownStar’s inquiry was the first time he heard Lopez received donations from strip clubs. But it wasn’t his only association with money from the business. A committee chaired by Gonzalez, the Southland Hispanic Democratic Organization, received a $500 donation from Jimmy’s Restaurant in 2006.

“I know it’s a business and they were listed as Jimmy’s Restaurant when we took it in 2006,” Gonzalez said. “It wasn’t the type of club that is today.”

He said the money was deposited with other campaign funds.

His opponent in the April mayoral election, Joe Faso, is a more recent recipient of strip club money. Jimmy’s Restaurant donated $1,000 to Friends of Joe Faso in January 2010.

Faso said he returned the money, although he could not come up with a copy of the check when asked.

“No offense to those people at Jimmy’s but I decided I was better off returning the funds,” Faso said. “They’re nice people. They’re a business. They have a liquor license. What they do is what they do and it’s not illegal.”

One of the major local political committees — the Bloom Township Democratic Organization — is also raking in strip club cash.

The committee, which is chaired by South Chicago Heights trustee Terry Matthews, received $2,100 in donations from Jimmy’s Restaurant since 2005. Club 390 also chipped in $300 to its coffers in 2007.

Matthews did not return multiple calls seeking comment.

South Chicago Heights Mayor Dave Owen, who has held the village’s top post since 1989, initially denied accepting campaign money from Jimmy’s Restaurant.

“Never,” he said.

But the facts speak for themselves. Citizens for Dave Owen has received $850 in donations from Jimmy’s Restaurant since 2005, with the most recent contribution of $200 coming in February 2010.

Owen said the donations must have come during one of his $100 a plate steak dinner campaign fundraisers, which he calls “smokies.”

“They have a right to buy a ticket and get a steak dinner like anyone else,” Owen said.

Former Ford Heights Mayor Saul Beck received $1,000 in donations from AEG Ventures, the company that owns Atlantis Gentlemen’s Club. Atlantis opened in Ford Heights in January 2007.

Beck said he needed his campaign money to fly to meetings hosted by the National League of Cities and other organizations.

“You can’t go to meetings if you can’t afford it,” Beck said. “Small guys can’t go anywhere. If you can’t go anywhere, you can’t tell what’s happening.”

At a county level, Preckwinkle isn’t the only recipient of club money.

Bare Assets, a strip club based out of Cicero, donated $250 in August 2010 to Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios’ 31st Ward Committeman account.

Kelley Quinn, Berrios’ spokeswoman, said the cash would not be returned anytime soon.

“It’s $250 from a legal business and there’s no reason to return it and we’ll leave it at that,” she said. “They do business in the state and they do business with newspapers across the state. Is it influencing our office? Absolutely not. No campaign contribution influences our office.”