Palomino Club (Las Vegas)

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This article is about the club in Las Vegas, Nevada. For the Los Angeles club, see Palomino Club (North Hollywood).

The Palomino Club is a landmark North Las Vegas strip club with a series of infamous owners, ranging from accused and convicted murderers to a prominent cardiologist. In 2006 the club is currently run by Adam Gentile.

[edit] History

It was built in North Las Vegas in 1969 by the Paul Perry family. One of the notable differences between the Palomino and other Las Vegas strip clubs, is that it is allowed to have both a liquor license, and totally nude dancers. Other clubs with liquor licenses are restricted to topless dancers. This difference, according to 2003-2006 owner Luis Hidalgo Jr., is because the club was grandfathered until approximately 2025 with the different rules. ^[1]

In 2000, a high-profile murder trial involved the Palomino Club owner's son, Jack Perry, who had shot and killed one of the employees he thought was trying to buy the club. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to "14 years to life" in prison.

In November 2001, the Palomino, along with two other nearby topless clubs, was bought by Dr. Simon Stertzer, a Stanford University interventional cardiologist who performed one of the first coronary angioplasties in the United States. Dr. Stertzer said he bought the club through a holding company, as an investment to fund his research: "Whatever will provide cash flow will do... It was a real estate investment."^[2]. (Two years earlier Stertzer, who was a founder and major shareholder of stent manufacturer Arterial Vascular Engineering, sold that company to Medtronic for $3.7 billion.) Stertzer hired a "longtime friend", Luis Hidalgo, to manage the club. ^[3] Hidalgo previously had run an auto body shop in San Bruno, California and met Stertzer who had brought his Mercedes in for repair. After immediate uproar by the medical and academic communities, and articles in newspapers all over the United States, Dr. Stertzer decided it was better to sell the club.^[4][5][6]

In 2002, the owner of the "Olympic Garden" club sued the owners of the Palomino, claiming they conspired with cabdrivers to divert customers. It was evidently a common practice for some clubs, such as Palomino and Cheetah's, to offer $5-$25 per customer to cab drivers, to encourage the drivers to bring customers to their club instead of someone else's. This put "non-kickback" clubs such as the Olympic Garden at a disadvantage. The case was eventually dropped. (Jordan, 2004)^[7]

Luis Hidalgo, Jr., took over the club in 2003. One of the changes that he instituted was to start an all-male nude act, known as the "Palomino Stallions", in order to try and attract female customers.

In 2005, Hidalgo Jr. and his sister, Anabel Espindola, were charged as co-conspirators in a contract murder case, with the accusation that they had hired two hit men to kill a former employee, who was found shot to death on a road near Lake Mead in May 2005.^[8]

In 2006, Hidalgo sold the club to his lawyer's firm, in order to cover legal fees.^[9] The mortgage on the property at the time was worth USD 13 million.

[edit] See also

• Operation G-Sting

[edit] References

• "Lake Mead Shooting: Four charged with slaying", May 26, 2006, Las Vegas Review-Journal
• "Palomino strip club sold to pay off legal fees", May 15, 2006
• Brent Jordan, Stripped: Twenty Years of Secrets from Inside the Strip Club, 2004
• Weekly Review, November 13, 2001, Harper's magazine (about Dr. Stertzer's purchase)
• "Local Strip Club at the Center of Alleged Murder for Hire", May 26, 2005, KVBC
• "Professor may pull out of strip club", November 13, 2001, Las Vegas Sun
• Stanford Magazine, January/February 2002 (Heart surgeon sells the club)
• "Nude club revenue to fund research", September 6, 2001, Las Vegas Sun
• "Flak forces doctor to sell strip clubs", November 14, 2001, Las Vegas Review-Journal
• "Med School prof sells strip clubs", November 21, 2001, The Stanford Daily
• "Four Charged: Police say rumors led to slaying", May 27, 2005, Las Vegas Review-Journal