(AKA "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"...)
Posted on 12/14/2008 12:28:50 PM PST by Beowulf9
"Chicken Ranch transfer blocked
By MARK WAITE PVT
The Chicken Ranch brothel will remain under its present ownership for the time being, after the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board unanimously rejected a request for a brothel license by Bruce Kahn Tuesday.
The vote came after a recommendation by Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo.
"It's a long standing position that a brothel license is the most privileged license in the state of Nevada, if not the United States of America," DeMeo said.
A documentary film crew from Los Angeles was taping the discussion.
The sheriff said Lt. Jack Grimauld spent 125 hours doing the investigation. Grimauld found plenty of gaps in Kahn's application.
They include: failing to list whether he had been ever refused a gaming, liquor, brothel or other privilege license in Nevada; a complete answer to whether he had ever been arrested, listing the time and place of arrest; a list of 10 references and their phone numbers; a complete list of his assets; identifying who took his fingerprints for the application and a complete list of his addresses for the past 10 years."
Kahn only listed a $3.6 million personal loan he was using to invest in the brothel. The property is being sold for $5.25 million, Grimauld said, leaving the sheriff's department to wonder where the remaining $2 million will come from.
Then there's the matter of a past bankruptcy as prohibited under the brothel code, Grimauld said. He added that there are three federal tax liens against Kahn.
Furthermore, Kahn lists an address in Dallas, Texas, but Grimauld said the brothel code states an applicant must have been a bona fide resident of Nevada for six months or more.
Kahn's 2004 income tax return lists a business named the Flying Zebra Bar.
Kahn unsuccessfully requested that the commissioners table the item so he could furnish more information. Grimauld described different information being supplied to the Nye County Sheriff's Department upon request, off and on, since March.
"I had attempted to provide as much information as possible but apparently I have failed at that," Kahn said in his brief testimony under oath.
Commissioner Butch Borasky asked the sheriff for a recommendation.
DeMeo replied: "Based on the investigation we have completed thus far that I would make the recommendation that we deny the application."
Kahn declined to say after the vote whether he will take further action.
Current Chicken Ranch owners Ken Green and Russ Reade bought the brothel in 1981. A previous newspaper article listed the original price tag at $6.95 million in 2004, when it was put on the market.
Deborah Rivenburgh, the current manager, would have stayed on in that capacity if Kahn's application were approved.
Bob Fisher, head of the public relations firm Fisher and Associates, which represents the brothel, said the property went into escrow last year but the Chicken Ranch obviously couldn't be sold until the new owner gets a brothel license.
The Chicken Ranch is based on the brothel made famous by the movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. That movie was about a brothel that originally opened in 1844 in La Grange, Texas, but was shut down by the governor of Texas in 1973 after publicity by Houston television consumer reporter Marvin Zindler. An enterprising capitalist bought the rights to the name and established the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump in 1975.
It earned the name The Chicken Ranch during the Depression, when the working girls were allowed to accept produce and livestock in lieu of cash. The brothel then had so many chickens that it raised poultry to supplement its income and food supply.
The sale of the property would be a turnkey operation including the trade name and 40 acres.
Chicken Ranch owners were unsuccessful at persuading the Nye County Commission to let them issue public stock back in 2003.
Previously two prospective owners withdrew their application for a brothel license, due to problems complying with the Nye County code. That license application never even got to the hearing stage."
Maybe clinton could take it over?
Until new personnel can be hired, management will continue operations by hand.
so it’s a morality problem? He’s not a good enough guy to open a brothel ?
it’s not like he’s asking the state for the money or anything. sheesh
Usually, when the government is involved, somebody gets screwed. But not this time!
This can’t be allowed to happen. Where’s Zerobama when you need him? Brothels need to allowed, no matter the cost. Where are all those wealthy liberal bankers we bailed out? How about we loan this guy a piece of that tapxpayer $700B pie?
I’m sure there are a few men-dressed-as-women he could’ve employed and gotten a great tax break on. Changeling Transvestites we can believe in!
They seem to be very careful about his credit.
Maybe he could get bail out help from the Feds?:)
Not in to brothels, but they do have a good shooting school in Pahrump.
On a related note, according to a Lincoln scholar on C-SPAN today, Michael Burlingame, the famous Mrs. Bixby of Boston (who received the letter from Lincoln) apparently was a brothel-owner. She sounds like the Cindy Sheehan of that era—she hated Lincoln so much she destroyed the letter (which was probably composed by John Hay and only signed by Lincoln), but if she merely kept a brothel she did less harm than Cindy.
Wow, you have to proof you’re an upstanding citizen to manage a whore house?
If only we had similar requirements to collect government money, or determine whether you could be in a position to dole out public money.
—th8iis article is a year and a half old—
Yike! Lol! Sorry, didn’t see. It’s posted under Dec 14, 2008 in the Pahrump news.
...and most of congress wouldn’t qualify.
(AKA "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"...)
Well, we don’t want the new owners to be over-extended. That would be a lot of debt service to swallow.
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