There’s a battle going down in one Illinois town, and one side is turning to an unlikely weapon in the fight — balloons. An order of nuns and members of the community released scores of balloons skyward (despite a nationwide helium shortage) to demonstrate their opposition of the “Get It” strip club set to open next door to their convent and home for retired nuns.
This fight against the gentlemen’s club has been going on for months now, with the sisters and their supporters trying to prevent Get It from opening. The club was originally slated to open in April, but road construction has hampered that plan.
When asked by a CBS Chicago reporter if the construction was a sign of divine intervention, one sister simply replied, “Take it whichever way you like it.”
The Thomas More society, a Roman Catholic legal group, sent a letter to Get It recently, claiming the state liquor control act forbids a license to the club and demanded that the owners “cease and desist” in opening such a place so close to the convent. The owners haven’t responded.
Nuns Launch Latest Assault Against Strip Club In Stone Park [CBS Chicago]
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On the one hand I can see this offending some nuns just trying to live out the rest of their days in peace. On the other hand, what a great opportunity for them to save some souls.
Agreed. The obvious solution to the “problem” is for the nuns to go out and proselytize to patrons. Of course, they should first warn the strip club owners that they will do so, in case they want to simply find a new place for their business.
Unless there is a zoning restriction, there isn’t much else the nuns can do about it. To be fair, I bet the club owners would rather the convent not be there, too.
No kidding. The nuns should just go to the club every day and visit with the girls and patrons.
But the choir is so much more receptive to the preaching. That being the case, I can see why they wouldn’t choose to do so. I know I sure as heck would be mightily unreceptive. If I was worried about my “eternal soul” I probably wouldn’t be going to Get It’s in the first place. On a somewhat related note, is this strip club going to be catering to the nun-fetishists out there?
love that image!
They could open up a competing business called “Stripping For Our Savior”
…I’m going to hell for that one.
I laughed… I think we’ll be seeing each other in hell.
don’t worry there are already several groups like this. The one that I saw in a documentary on TV was Strippers for Jesus.
Worth it.
Surprised the balloons floated… I woulda guessed the nun’s balloons would all be deflated by now.
Get on your knees…
Nun: “Father O’Mallory, where did you get those strange rosary beads?”
Club should be allowed to open. Sorry, I believe that religious groups have too much power.
They should even have a “nun-night” there
Don’t like it, don’t go to the club. The End.
Seriously. All the strip clubs I know of are windowless, and the strippers (sorry—”dancers”) are inside when performing.
What’s the problem?
My guess, the problem is the clientèle. Or at least the potential for them to cause problems when they are outside afterwards (and have a few too many). Even a bar or nightclub would be a problem for the nuns as well. But in those places, the staff keeps their clothes on.
Here’s a similar situation.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=19930727&id=TgchAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bHYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1269,3940544
The Thomas More society, a Roman Catholic legal group, sent a letter to Get It recently, claiming the state liquor control act forbids a license to the club…
If that’s truly the case, why don’t they just contact the licensing authority?
If that’s truly the case, what the fuck does it matter? They won’t be allowed to open.
They are probably waiting for god to make it reality. Best of luck to them on that front.
Ah, the Thomas More Society, the only group in IL willing to take on a legal defense of DOMA. Bunch of meddling bigots, they are.
Get your own house in order before impinging on others. Keep those priests celibate!
yep, need ot let them know they’re weak by keeping temptation away.
i remember being in elementary school and having the school put a ban on releasing balloons because it’s so bad for the wildlife when they come to rest and pop.
oh, yep, here’s something on it about an EPA report
http://thetandd.com/news/opinion/blogs/environmentally_challenged/article_23426c64-bd08-11df-b473-001cc4c03286.html
so there’s a helium shortage, and balloons are bad trash anyway…. i thought nuns were about good stuff.
The nuns aren’t worried. I’m sure God’ll catch ‘em for them.
God’ll catch ‘em all!
Won’t trade me his damned Gyarados, though.
Jesus hated prostitutes, strippers, and lepers.
“strippers, and lepers”
When they are one in the same, you get an interesting show.
It’s not just the clothes that fall off!
On the other hand, Jesus *did* hang out with sinners, though.
He probably found them more interesting than people who repented all the time.
I can’t repent. I haven’t pented yet.
But he only lost his temper with the moneychangers.
Oops, sorry, that’s another discussion.
Perhaps if it was a gay strip club, the priests would not have such a problem.
Pedophile != Homosexual
You should probably learn this before you make a fool out of yourself when this topic comes up next time.
Don’t the majority of the reported abuse cases involve boys?
That’s what I was going to say. So just because they were underage boys somehow doesn’t make it a homosexual act? So pedophilia covers any sex under a certain age and it suddenly turns into homosexuality when they reach the age of consent?
Pedophiles are not interested in sex with adults, be they men or women. They are interested in sex with children. So unless your gay strip club employed strippers who were severely underage, pedophile priests wouldn’t be interested. And that’s the difference. It’s really not that hard to comprehend.
Shh, you’re fighting a losing battle against some ignorant pile of shit who thinks gays are paedophiles.
I dunno men with underage boys sounds pretty homosexual to me. I imagine there are pedo-gays and pedo-straights out there. God loves variety etc.
Only because most altar “helpers” are boys. In most cases pedophiles don’t really care what sex the child is.
If they all just hung out giving judgemental looks to the patrons (if the club opens), then they could probably cause many customers to not want to return.
The only reason I would be willing to keep the club out is noise. Strip clubs are hardly quiet locations, and a rest home does earn some consideration in that regard.
They have it all wrong. They should be out on the sidewalk, collecting donations from all the embarrassed men as they go in and out. “Oh, hi, Mr. O’Malley… I’m sure we’ll see you in confession this week. Be a shame if the father were to give you too many ‘Hail Marys’ “.
This.
They should launch a cooperative campaign, hang a sign for confession and lapdance specials and put more butts in the pews. Or perhaps lapdance then confession.
my friend used to strip at a club that was in the same strip mall as a florist. the florist stayed open late and made a killing
If I were a nun there, my biggest objection would be to increased traffic, at late hours, and drunk people wandering around messing things up. A convent is a home for the nuns as well as a place for contemplation and prayer. Would you want a strip club next door to you?
Agreed. The collateral problems that come with this kind of place are sometimes worse then the place itself. Had to live next to a joint like that for a year in NYC and got maybe two nights sleep the whole time. The will be horribly disruptive to a religious community – whether you agree with their philosophy or not.
Would you want a strip club next door to you?
Yes. But I’m not a nun.
No, because I don’t want to spend all the money in my pockets.
>> Would you want a strip club next door to you?
>
> Yes. But I’m not a nun.
The “vice” aspect of this situation is the least relevant aspect of this situation.
I don’t want any commercial enterprise next to me. I don’t want the traffic and the noise and all of that going on all hours of the night. That’s why I live in a residential neighborhood.
It could be a bar or a restaurant or a Fry’s. It would all be the same to me.
To counter, the strip club is set to release helium-filled condoms into the air. How’s that for “balloons”?
Something tells me there will be more balloons inside of the strip club than outside of it.
Christ, so the story goes, hung out with lepers and sinners and hookers and other people of low moral fiber. I guess today he’d tell ‘em to get the hell away from him?
No! Balloon releases are bad for wildlife.
sad pictures inside this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7447381.stm
I’m siding with the strip club now for sure.
I hope the strip club opens. I’m sick of seeing all these whiny “not in my back yard” complaints. It’s not going to hurt the nuns. Frankly, I wouldn’t want a convent opening in my back yard, but I’m not going to make a huge stink about that, either.
I’d rather have a convent than a strip club open next door. I think the noise, increased foot traffic and vehicle traffic, possible drunk people, etc. would be a nuisance. At least nuns are quiet, as far as I know.
Noise, traffic, drunks. So your complaint is having a bar next door not necessarily that it also has naked ladies showing their vaginas
Yes, pretty much that, ’cause the ladies won’t be stripping outside, hopefully.
I wouldn’t be happy with a family of dirt bike freaks who think that everyone in the neighborhood wants to listen to them buzz around their yard in circles for hours on end either. Yeah, that happened about a mile from my house. The people over there are pissed. And talking to the dirt bike crew went nowhere, except getting cursed at, and more noise.
Call the cops? There are laws against all of these things.
You’re arguing that the strip club should be prohibited from running a perfectly legal business because of events which have not yet occurred.
And let the anti-Catholic, stereotyping bigotry begin!
Having said that, I think it would be funny to see the nuns sitting taking photos of the patrons of the ‘gentlemen” going into this club.
And yes, the noise, traffic etc would be pretty obnoxious to live next door to, no matter your religion.
I know right? It turns out you don’t have to be religious to be hypocritical and self righteous on the internet!
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-double-standards-were-all-guilty-of/
What is intrinsically hypocritical of being critical of the catholic church? Is condemning pedophilia (and it’s subsequent covering up of) while not participating myself somehow considered hypocritical? Is being critical of a business being able to run itself tax exempt while not myself running a business that is tax exempt somehow hypocritical? I don’t mind one iota if you want to spend your time worshiping something that could possibly exist, but the fact remains that there is a lot to criticize the church for that I am not guilty of doing myself.
How is it hypocritical to return the exact same vitriol they’ve been spewing out for centuries?
This is a religion that encourages Africans in countries with massive HIV problems to not use condoms. They encourage bans against homosexuality, and support the death penalty for it. They cover up the abuse of children. They ignore all of the violence, hatred, and death spread by their policies.
I really doubt the Catholic church supports the death penalty for homosexuality.
If the strip club’s opening would violate any licensing or zoning laws, most likely the nuns would have nothing to worry about and the legal fight would be over. But what’s been reported suggests that the club is probably following the law, and the nuns are the ones on shaky legal ground. Why in world should they be able to impose their notion of “family values” on a neighboring business and its clientele? If I were the strip club owner, I’d release my own balloons — one for every known victim of sex abuse by Catholic clergy. The church has already paid out more than $2 billion to settle these cases. That’s a lot of balloons.
Well, they claim that the club can’t sell liquor. Some places still have some blue laws on the books that you can’t sell alcohol x feet from a church. (Nashville ran into this when they were building their NFL stadium). So, if such a law is on the books (and I don’t know if there is or not) then I suppose they may be claiming the convent is a “church” and thus the club would be in violation.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but I would imagine those hoops have already been hopped through considering they were on schedule to start construction previously. It’s not like someone is going to get the permits, get the loans, get the land, build the building, and only THEN worry about something so pivotal to the business. But perhaps this guy is that stupid. I’d assume the sisters are gliding on prayers with this one.
You would think. But about 10 yeaers ago in West Palm Beach, someone started building a strip club in the middle of an office park. They actually finished the shell of the building — which means the blueprints had already been approved — before the county told them the property was zoned for office use only.
I know the empty shell sat there for at least a year or two, but I don’t know what ever became of it.
I don’t really understand the problem. After watching probably the 100s of pornographic nuns clips, I’d assumed things were all good with porn.
The way I was taught Catholicism, I would much more have expected that 1) the nuns would recognize it as a challenge from God, and 2) would be eager to have a magnet for sinners right next door that they can work to heal and repent.
Really? What possessed this strip club to buy a property right next to a convent? Is their such a shortage of space available in Chicago that they didn’t have any choice? I really wonder if strip club owners purposefully picked this plot of land so they could get free advertising.
Look, I don’t care if it’s a religious institution or a regular person’s home, very few people would actually want a strip club opening next door to them. I don’t blame these nuns for doing what they can to prevent the strip club from opening. (Though whether they’ll succeed is an entirely different matter.)
On the contrary, strip club licenses are notoriously hard to get because of so many people with the “not in my backyard” mentality. In fact, most places in the United States of Puritanism haven’t had new locations for sexual-oriented businesses approved since the 80s. Sometimes the community doesn’t care but other grandfathered in clubs will protest pretending to be concerned citizens.
What this means is that new strip clubs aren’t all that “new” and usually it’s another strip club that used to operate in that location that just got a new owner and is getting renovated and reinvested. I’ll admit I’m not from Chicago, but it’s pretty unlikely that these guys just up and got a permit to open, and perhaps more likely the nuns moved in and used the renovation to cause trouble. And, most likely of all, these nuns are probably plants and being nudged along by Scores right down the street from the proposed Get It location.
I can already see Candy’s opening night outfit
http://tinyurl.com/6moswpl
Balloon releases are always disturbing to me. It looks all pretty and all, but eventually, it is just litter.
All the nuns will see is cars parking and people walking in. It’s more about being a prude than a noise or nuisance issue.
I lived 1/2 block from a suburban strip club and its not a big deal. They were good neighbors, there were no sex orgies in the parking lot, and it was quieter than a band bar.
Nobody wants a strip club to open next door to them, but if it is zoned right and all the papers are in order they only thing you can do is buy the land yourself. The upset neighbors being nuns shouldn’t even be part of this conversation.
Ok, Really? This is in a town called Stone Park. I lived in the west suburbs. If anything, it’s the nuns that stand out! The towns main source of income comes from the non stop hookers walking down mannheim road and the adult bookstore. Not to mention getting tickets for “speeding” *wink* *wink*. Most corrupt town, makes cicero look like an amateur! ha!
Wouldn’t it say better things about their faith if they didn’t raise a stink over it opening?
It would say better things about their faith if praying stopped the strip club.
Zing.
Look at the map. The strip club (big silver square with long parking lot) is accessed off a commercial street and “sort of” backs onto the convent’s garden.
http://goo.gl/maps/T7ta
I’m shocking myself here, but for the first time I find myself actually siding with the fundies. I’m a liberal atheist but I would highly object to a titty bar opening next to my residence too. I’ve never encountered a “classy” strip club, there’s just no such thing. It’s nothing but exploitation of women and I wouldn’t want the kind of trashy people that frequent such places anywhere near me. I can’t help but wonder if the club’s owners purposefully picked the spot right next to the convent on purpose just to be dicks. Either way, I hope the nuns win.
You know….after hanging out with a stripper for a while, I’ve come to believe it’s far more exploitative of the men that attend than the women. The money is made because men desire to see some naked ladies, maybe appealing because they don’t have to do anything but fork over a little cash, I can’t so for sure on that one. For some, I’m sure it’s because they are lonely. The women just get some cash for dancing while removing clothes, that doesn’t seem so bad to me.
Also my stripper friend made BANK working at strip club and really enjoyed what she did. After watching her operate off the clock at bars, I can see why because she is REALLY good at convincing dudes to open their wallets and keep them open. Hey, if a person can make money doing something they love, more power to them.
Was about to say exactly what you did. It often seems like the reverse of what most people think.
Um, do you folks realize that a lot of solicitation of prostitution occurs at strip clubs? This means periodically there will be police activity and arrests, along with probably unruly behavior. All of this increases if alcohol is served.
We don’t know if the Thomas More Society is correct in saying that a liquor license can’t be issued. This may be at the heart of the dispute, because you would not expect a strip club to open if the owners know in advance that they can’t serve alcohol.
So your point is to legalize prostitution so that the nuns won’t be bothered by the police activity and arrests? If so, you make an excellent point!
If people are minding their own business, not harming anyone else, leave them alone. It doesn’t mean that we approve of their conduct, just that I should be minding my own business, too. If there is unruly behavior which affects the neighbors, then that should be addressed.
Um, no, but thanks for making that point yourself. My point is that nobody wants something in their neighborhood that attracts illegal activities. If someone there was a crackhouse next door, would you let that slide as long as there are no deals on your lawn or gunplay in the street?
The key point is the “minding your own business” part–how exactly do I know that it’s a crackhouse? If all the “business” is conducted inside, and nothing’s spilling over into the neighborhood, then fine.
It’s also worth noting that any gunplay that occurs is likely to be the result of the illegality of certain drugs, rather than some intrinsic feature of the drug itself. And that the guys selling drugs on your lawn…might be the police: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2010-06-21/story/jacksonville-settles-family-80-year-old-man-shot-police
“how exactly do I know that it’s a crackhouse?”
Well, true there’s not a sign to that effect. But the strip club will no doubt have a sign. But if there is a crackhouse next door, you will know. Quickly.
“And that the guys selling drugs on your lawn…might be the police”
Well, like I said, the police will be there frequently… :-p
Oh, just is I was clicking submit, I realized your point about the police possibly selling the crack is applicable to the strip club story. Our sheriff’s department recently fired a cop because he was spending a good bit of his shift at a strip club. They put a tracking device on his car and found that he was there not just while he was on duty, but even while he was supposedly responding to calls.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-04-23/news/fl-bso-deputy-stripclub-20120423_1_nude-clubs-strip-clubs-bso
My first response to this is, “what?! they put a convent in Stone Park?” For those who don’t live in the Chicago area, Stone Park is a suburb devoted almost exclusively to sleazy motels, bars, strip clubs, porno shops, and crooked cops and judges. All those people should be protesting to kick the convent out. That’s the thing that doesn’t belong.
Have friends in NYC, when their street became high end hooker central the local mob made sure the streets were clean, and all around did a better job of policing the neighborhood than the cops ever did.
Maybe the nuns will find that having a neighbor who does not want ANY trouble in the neighborhood will lead to living in a nicer neighborhood. Or Sister Act III who knows?
Well, the mob already runs the town. Literally. In No way do they want this to clean up. The hookers, “Tickets” and other stuff is a HUGE source of income for a town that in all regards, is rather tiny.
Mannheim road, which goes past the police station and has hookers walking in front of it, is a 6 lane road, with a speed limit of 30. I’ve had friends get tickets for going 25. It’s just stone park.
I wouldn’t want a tax-exempt convent of sanctimonious nuns opening next to me.
Has there ever been a similar uproar about retired priests moving in next to a day care or kindergarten?
“Has there ever been a similar uproar about retired priests moving in next to a day care or kindergarten?”
If they can prove that they’ve been castrated, I would be less concerned. But even castrated men can be pedophiles but could be lovely mezzo sopranos.
Nuns gotta ruin everything.