To Tommy Arney, the revitalized downtown Norfolk lacks one key attraction: scantily clad women entertaining men as they enjoy refreshments.
The restaurateur and former go-go bar owner said he would love to open a gentlemen's club in the city's core. Earlier this year, Arney and his son bought the two Havana restaurants, in downtown Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and Club Soda restaurant downtown.
Arney thought Club Soda, on Tazewell Street a block from busy Granby Street, would make an ideal location for such an establishment. When he floated the idea to the building's owner and city leaders, it received a less-than-lukewarm response, he said.
Arney, a 52-year-old entrepreneur with a rough past and a penchant for speaking his mind, has no fear of ruffling feathers to protect his business interests. Despite his conviction that downtown Norfolk needs a gentlemen's club, he agreed to set the plan aside - for now.
"If you put a nice gentlemen's club in downtown Norfolk, it would say nothing but 'welcome' to travelers," Arney said. "The people downtown would have loved it because it would have been a first-class operation."
Gentlemen's clubs - which Arney describes as a highbrow version of go-go bars - have emerged in many redeveloped cities across the country, he said. While in downtown Charlotte, N.C., recently for an auto fair to collect antique car parts, he visited a place called Uptown Cabaret.
"The place was gorgeous, and it was packed," he recalled.
In Norfolk, he envisioned valet parking, a $10 cover charge and a dress code requiring collared shirts. His go-go bars, by comparison, had no such restrictions. "All you had to have was money in your pocket."
Some of the champions of Norfolk's downtown fail to share Arney's enthusiasm.
"I don't think it fits within the vision that we have for downtown Norfolk," Cathy Coleman, president of the Downtown Norfolk Council, said of a gentlemen's club.
"We've established a reputation in the region and beyond as a fine-dining center. We have sophisticated clubs that certainly enhance the lifestyle. And we are a residential neighborhood."
A potential clash with the growing residential component of the city center is the primary reason that Norfolk attorney Peter Decker Jr., a friend and mentor of Arney's, discouraged him from pursuing the gentlemen's club, Decker said.
"Those people, I think, did not buy those condominiums with the thought that a gentlemen's club would be right near them," he said, adding that the city has made an unspoken pledge: "We're not going to have topless places and things like that next to you."
Without another plan for Club Soda, which they bought from a company headed by the late Carl Shubert, the Arneys decided to sell the business to the building's landlord. Sture Sigfred, a Norfolk resident who owns three other restaurants among other properties downtown, declined to comment.
"It would have made a lot of money," Arney's son, Thomas Ryan Arney, lamented of the gentlemen's club.
The new owners plan to keep Havana as is, praising its current management and menu, though they said they might sell the Great Neck Road location.
The younger Arney, who goes by Ryan and is as low-key as his father is forthright, owns the restaurants, while his dad serves as general manager. Now 25, Ryan Arney grew up in his father's Chesapeake restaurant, Maxwell's Tavern, and still cooks lunch there most days, favoring dishes such as blackened tuna and fried catfish.
He lives across the street from his parents in the Great Bridge area of Chesapeake. The elder Arney always wanted a restaurant in downtown Norfolk, where he spent much time in his youth, and saw a chance to pass the mantle to the next generation.
"He's young," Tommy Arney explained. "I'm old."
No matter the name on the business license, Tommy Arney clearly runs the places - at least until Ryan finishes school. The younger Arney hopes to get his English degree from Old Dominion University in the fall and then continue on for his master's degree in business.
"His education is very important, because I don't have one," said the father, adding that he quit school in the sixth grade. "If I had an education, I would be much farther than I am today."
As it is, Arney has come quite far from his humble roots in Rocky Mount, N.C. There, he handled disputes with his fists, making his way from foster care and juvenile institutions onto a bus that brought him to Norfolk, where his brothers and sisters lived. He was 15 then.
The homeowners who rented a room to his brother refused to let him move in, so Arney slept in a bus station restroom until he started a business hauling junk in a pickup, he said. He also racked up a criminal record, including a felony for a supermarket break-in.
Over the years, he bought several properties and operated several go-go bars - including the Body Shop, which he closed in 1996. Arney has owned Maxwell's Tavern for 13 years and owns Moyock Muscle, an auto restoration yard that refurbishes hot rods and classic trucks in North Carolina.
Arney's business card, which he considers sort of a joke, lists his primary title as "master consultant." It also touts expertise in finance, real estate and liquidation and identifies him as a "life coach."
"Master consultant means everybody always asks me, 'Tommy, should I do this? Tommy, should I buy that?' " he chuckled.
All this from a guy who can't read or write. Arney will frankly discuss his illiteracy, which he overcomes by surrounding himself with lawyers and trusted employees who read documents to him.
He also has experience butting heads with government officials. About 17 years ago, he embarked on an extended battle with the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control over the sale of hard liquor in his go-go bars and the amount of clothing required on the dancers. That fight ended in Arney's favor in late 1993, after he appealed an ABC ruling to Norfolk Circuit Court.
Jump to 2008 and Arney's current dispute with the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which has moved to seize three of his properties on Hampton Boulevard to expand the University Village shopping area, across from the Old Dominion University campus.
NRHA condemned the properties on behalf of the ODU Real Estate Foundation, an arm of the school that's developing University Village. Arney said the foundation offered him less than half his asking price of $3.15 million.
Now, Arney said, he doesn't want to sell - for any price. The city has sued him in Norfolk Circuit Court to condemn one of the three sites. Arney's Norfolk attorney, Joseph Waldo, argues that the buildings aren't blighted as the city contends and that ODU has no right to take private property for commercial development.
"Tommy is the type that helps change laws and change perception, because he is one to stand up and fight for what's right," Waldo said.
With the gentlemen's club idea for downtown, though, Arney said he prefers to avoid the fray.
"Sometimes," he said, "it's better to get along with the giant than to anger the giant."
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
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Hmm
I think he bought those restaurants at the peak of the market. Eating out is expected to fall as consumer spending tightens up, now that the wealth effect is gone as rapid appreciation in property prices is gone. People will most likely start eating at home, being more frugal. The real congratulations goes to whoever sold Havana's ... Excellent timing!
hey teri
If this thing ever comes to pass, will you go with me on opening night?
I'd definately feel safe knowing you were carrying.
History, come full circle
An establishment such as this would close the circle that downtown has traveled over a long history. Once, downtown had some of the finest burlesque houses on the east coast. Rose laRose brought fame and fortune to Norfolk. She made a lot of military guys happy during some dark days in our history.
A well appointed establishment with attractive young performers (and have a Ladies Night too) could be another "jewel" in Norfolk's crown (to quote Mayor Roy Martin)
Mr Arney
Sir, my hat's off to you for standing up for yourself. That speaks volums for a person coming from your background. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, I do think it would be a busy gentleman's club filled mostly with downtown attorney's and doctors form Sentara, not to mention tourist or traveling business men. The hotels are built for the traveling business men in the first place. It's interesting there was no comment from any council member, would be interesting to hear what they have/had to say. As for Cathy Coleman, her reasoning doesn't fly. Waterside has turned into a huge bar with places like Hooters. What say you Coleman about that? What say you about the drunks downtown, the homeless problem and the list could go on. Coleman needs to think again and find a better reason than what she has said thus far. I think Mr. Arney shoud pursue his gentleman's club downtown and I think it could be successful if properly run.
Gee Mr.Arney
Sorry about the club (the term "go-go" certainly did evoke 60's free love--kind of sweet). I was looking forward to taking my boyfriend there. Nothing like a change of scenery to get the old juices flowing. I hope that wasn't too much for the family-we don't-give-prizes-for-nude-art-Virginian Pilot.
NORFOLK'S ON THE RIGHT PATH
This city has come a long way over the years and needs to continue moving forward with an eye on the needs of all citizens and visitors. I feel comfortable walking around downtown at night. There are some really nice establishments for entertainment. To some though, this type of venture would be intriguing and probably profitable; however, I do not believe downtown is the right locale.
Their Vision of Downtown
Their vision of downtown is one where young people pay too much for apartments and spend their life in debt to prop up the older people's property values. Young people are expected to not be seen unless spending money. If you're not spending money you best disappear. Meanwhile the older people complain about everything the younger people do or want, the young people's only use is to provide liquidity for the old people's lofty expectations on sales prices of their homes. And anyone who buys housing on a street full of bars deserves any noise they get. Condos will depreciate farther than houses, which can be expected to revert to 2001 prices, or go even lower.
Tom Arney
If the City of Norfolk did decide to allow a Gentlemen's Club for downtown certainly the first requirement of the operator would be to be a gentleman himself.
Take it from someone who had a nightclub and a brand new Cadillac stolen by Tom Arney, the man is no gentleman. His reputation for lying and stealing stretch back decades.
I think...
Trubritt's husband left her for a stripper, or maybe her father was seduced by the go-go lights and abandoned the family... let the man have his club and make some money. I don't think it should be the decision of a select few to determine the "vision" of an entire city. We also don't need someone imposing their own idea of morality onto everyone.
The Union Mission is a serious tourist attraction
No Upscale "gentleman's club" in downtown, but the festering Union Mission that puts mental cases, drunks, panhandlers and other upstanding citizens on the downtown streets is OK? Offer the city the property it wants by ODU in return for approval of your club and see if this gets it for you. I'd bet money it would--drop by the King--er Mayor's office and then have a chat with Queen Regina in private and see if that doesn't get you your high class strip joint. They don't have to be naked you know--just beautiful and friendly and your bar will be packed.
Amazing
Reading Trubritt, one gets the opinion she hates men. Blames the men for this type of business. However, if there were no females working in the establishment, then the men would not go. So what is your opinion of the "class" of women that take such a job?
Double Standard
I don't get it -- isn't downtown governed by the same laws as Ward's Corner and Ocean View? If the Downtown Norfolk Council wants to legislate "tase," how do you explain Hooter's at Waterside or A.J. Gator's on Granby Street?
I wonder if Cathy Coleman or anyone else on the Downtown Norfolk Council has ever been to Bar Norfolk, where the women hardly wear anything at all!
Gentlemens club
I travel around the world and exrensively in the USA. All major cities have this type of upscale entertainment.The building are empty and the business's failed.Perhaps we should put it in Waterside
As far as I'm concerned,
As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as an upscale gentlemen's club. It's all the same....still men paying to see women take their clothes off because that's all they can get. It's ridiculous that people feel we need to entertain the tourists with this type of business. What's wrong with having tasteful businesses in downtown? We need to clean up Norfolk, not bring it down.
Thank you! It's about time someone took a stand.
I applaude the city for taking a stand and not "selling out" for money. Lord knows we have plenty of smut around the city from other "establishments", media, billboards etc... Arney calls it a "first-class operation", a "welcome to travelers". What an oxymoron. According to whom? Those without a conscience?Those without a wife and children to honor and respect? Men that would rather indulge themselves in lust than to live a life of integrity?Is there really such a thing as a "Gentlemen's Club"? And we wonder why our country is on a major moral decline. Our teenagers are so sexually active,getting pregnant, dying of STD's, having abortions,or killing themselves through eating disorders. All for what? To look and feel like these women. Hey Dad's, think about your duaghters. A daughter wants her father's heart. Seeing your attraction to these kinds of women,tells her that's what she needs to be to win your affection. Wake up and start being an example. Remember that all these women, dancers, strippers, all these gorgeous bodies, all belong to someone. They are someone's daughter, wife, or mother. Not to you.
Oh me oh my
Constitution Constitution...... Now what is Cynthia Hall and Pitko going to do this time to squash the constitution. Gonna get her minions from Environmental to go on a hunt if she can't find anyone guilty she will at the very least create precedence.
Seriously folks, is Arnald friend or foe to condo developers? That is really all that matters with the city's elected and those who wield
the power to destroy or unhold
Downtown Vision?
I agree. An upscale gentlemens club does not fit the "vision". I mean just look at the "vision". Waterside. Now there is the "vision" for downtown norfolk. Drunks staggering from one bar to another. Arrests. Shootings. People being run down by cars. That is the "vision" that norfolk's cathy coleman wants to project. Not an upscale quiet club. She must want the girls-gone-wild truck parked on waterside drive. That's the norfolk "vision"!
Good Example of Survival
Tommy Arney is a man who will always survive adversity; we need more people like him, fighters who know how to overcome adversity. Do not let this man learn to read; he would undoubtedly take over downtown Norfolk. Wait. Perhaps that is not such a bad idea.
I always laugh when I read about those evil breasts which must remain hidden, and laugh even harder when I read about men paying through the nose to see the breasts. Let the man open his club. Tourists would flock to it, as well as many locals.
go-go bar?
I don't think I've heard this type of establishment called a go-go bar since the 1960s - and I wasn't even alive then...