CLAY, FLORIDA – When the folks who brought commercials for the ubiquitous Girls Gone Wild videos to late-night television start a search for the best bar in the country, odds are it’s not the drinks list they’ll be staring at.
Instead, when video crews start rolling footage in Clay County tonight as part of a search for the “Wildest Bar in America,” they’ll be rating the Crazy Horse Saloon for the “hotness” of its staff and the chances of someone going home lucky.
In the end, those folks most likely will be the filmmakers themselves. Girls Gone Wild rakes in millions of dollars, $9.99 at a time, selling DVDs of coeds “uncensored and out of control.”
But just how wild they can get locally remains to be seen.
Clay County ordinances bar women from simulating sex or exposing their breasts in a bar, acts that are the Girls Gone Wild franchise’s stock in trade.
The laws also would seem to put a damper on any “party bus” action outside the club, where taping of the videos’ more explicit wildness has been set in the past. Under Clay County ordinances, women can’t display their breasts, genitals, pubic areas or buttocks within 300 feet of a business that serves alcohol.
Nor are there likely to be many college girls present. The Crazy Horse is a bar, strictly 21 and above.
County Attorney Mark Scruby said it would be up to local law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office to interpret the ordinances.
Mary Justino of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said off-duty deputies hired by the bar will be on hand to monitor the situation, as they are every night the bar is open.
If they witness lawbreaking in action – say, a lifted shirt or lap-dancing, another Clay County no-no – there may be consequences.
Violating the ordinance is a misdemeanor, Justino said.
Girls Gone Wild’s previous trips to Florida haven’t all been fun. Its founder, Joe Francis, until recently faced dozens of charges because of a 2003 tape that included two 17-year-old girls in Panama City. The majority of those charges were dropped, but according to The Associated Press, Francis still faces four felony and two misdemeanor charges.
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office has been assured by the bar’s management that what starts there at 9 p.m. today will follow all the county’s guidelines, Justino said. According to the Sheriff’s Office, no nudity or contests involving nudity have been advertised and the Blanding Boulevard bar is aware of the laws that apply.
Perhaps Girls Gone Mild would be more appropriate.
The tour’s facilitator didn’t comment Thursday about the event, except to say it is part of a national tour. He referred questions to a spokesman, who did not return a call for comment.
According to Girls Gone Wild’s Web site, the winning bar will be featured on national TV, a pay-per-view special and in a men’s magazine.
The company’s crews have been in Florida all week, visiting West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton.
The film crew for the Wildest Bar in America contest has been closer to home, as well, visiting the Bourbon Street Station in Jacksonville since the tour kicked off in August. It houses a Crazy Horse Saloon, as well, and several other venues.
“Unfortunately for us, we didn’t see the bars until after midnight, because there were girls knocking down the door of the bus. Which in our line of work is a good thing,” wrote the blogger on the Girls Gone Wild Web site.
