Bob Davis Heads to the Poles, Again

A A A Comments By Rick Anderson Wednesday, Aug 11 2010

When we last left Bob Davis, he was making large amounts of money by trying, and failing, to become a nude–dance club owner. Now, as seattlepi.com reported, he has applied for a cabaret license to take over the late Frank Colacurcio's shuttered strip club, Rick's, in Lake City.

Jeremy Eaton

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With any kind of luck, Davis will be turned down—so he can again fall back-asswards into money.

Davis made his small fortune, $850,000, suing the cities of Seattle and Bothell for refusing to give him strip-club licenses. He's also responsible for the lawsuit that forced City Hall to lift its moratorium on new downtown clubs in 2007. After paying his attorneys, Davis planned to cash in further with a club of his own—and still might, if the law will let him.

His plan to convert Cyndy's, the former Aurora Avenue pancake house, into a strip club has been opposed by neighbors. He has looked at several other locations, so far to no avail. And his hopes of taking over Rick's hinge on getting over another neighborhood-opposition hurdle, as well as being the successful bidder when the property is auctioned by the feds.

Davis, who once operated Giggles Comedy Club and the Urban Comedy Cafe, helped millionaire nudie impresario Roger Forbes get a couple of his new Déjà Vu clubs going here, and sees the closure of the Colacurcio strip clubs as a prime opportunity—as it has apparently become for others. Forbes' Lake City club, a few miles from Rick's, is picking up the latter's former customers; other clubs are seeing a (yes) rise in attendance, while a number of new clubs have opened (or will open) in the hinterlands, including Renton and the Navy town of Oak Harbor.

Davis wants in. As he explained earlier, despite getting flush from his lawsuits, "I'd much rather have been allowed to open a club years ago than have to go to court. I'd have made a lot more money."

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