Roseburg bar to become gentlemen's club | The News-Review - NRtoday.com: "For the last six weeks, the owners and employees of Yogee's bar have been going through a reluctant change, adding a coat of paint, new seating, lighting and a stage to the back section of the establishment on Cass Avenue in Roseburg.
Business has slowed recently, forcing the owners to update their business after 11 years in operation.
Their only move, owners and brothers Toby and Robert Faas decided, was to turn half the bar into a gentlemen's club featuring topless exotic dancers.
“This isn't really what we wanted to do,” Toby Faas said. “We tried to become a family friendly establishment, alcohol-free on half of the building, so that families could come in. Five months, three proposals and countless phone calls trying to work it out — we got told no by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.”
The bar would have to remove its games and pool tables to satisfy state liquor laws in order to allow minors, Faas said, but without the games, they didn't see a way to attract minors to the establishment.
“Our goal was to increase the non-alchohol sales ... we were setting it up as a community-friendly establishment and apparently the laws aren't written that way. The only other way we could go was this way,” Faas said, gesturing to the pole and newly constructed stage.
Dave Spani, liquor inspector for OLCC, said that when a bar is licensed, it may provide any entertainment it chooses and called showcasing exotic dancers a “constitutionally protected activity.”
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