Inqlings: For dealer, a strip-show-room sale
Philadelphia will get a version of Rick's Cabaret, and the strip-club deal means a big payday for Valley Forge businessman Vince Piazza.
Philadelphia will get a version of Rick's Cabaret, and the strip-club deal means a big payday for Valley Forge businessman
Vince Piazza
.
Rick's, one of the few clubs traded on Nasdaq (ticker: RICK), filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week to indicate it was buying Crazy Horse Too, which Piazza opened two years ago on the lower end of Columbus Boulevard in South Philly.
In a matter of weeks, it will be reflagged as a Rick's, a spokesman said Friday, emphasizing that along with the dancers it will promote a sports bar/steakhouse theme, much as Delilah's does.
Rick's had expressed interest last year in buying just a stake in Crazy Horse Too. The SEC filing says Rick's is going all the way in the purchase of the business, but will buy 51 percent of the land.
Piazza, auto-dealer father of baseball great
Mike Piazza
, is listed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board as Crazy Horse Too's president. He said in 2006 that he had set up the club in hopes of flipping it quickly.
The 8-K filing pegs the deal at $3.5 million, plus stock worth nearly $4.5 million, plus a cut of future rent on the property, of which Piazza will retain a share. Piazza did not return a call for comment.
Up in the air
One news story that CBS3
Eyewitness News
viewers have not yet seen was a report, shot Nov. 24, about the Philadelphia Police Department's Aviation Unit. The city has two helicopters, which fly four to five hours a night. The story, pointing out the useful work and in effect making a case for more choppers, was reported by
Alycia Lane
, who came in on her day off. But a timing issue, unrelated to her Dec. 16 arrest, bumped the story. The story, which may have helped Lane's cred with police, sat in the can - and then died after Lane was fired last month. CBS3 declined to comment.
Radio active
Rock radio in Philly is largely a man's world. WYSP (94.1) afternoon newcomer
Jennifer Reed
doesn't know why. "I don't even think about it," says Reed, a Dallas native who worked there with WYSP program director
John Cook
. "I've been lucky." Most of the time. She went up against two female DJs in Atlanta, and won. But she lost her last job in a format flip.
Reed, whose MySpace page gives her age as 35, won't be at work tomorrow. She'll be in Dallas arranging a move to her new loft in Northern Liberties, where she will live with her kitten, Maynard James (named after Tool's
Maynard James Keenan
), and, perhaps, with her boyfriend. She says she's not sure.
Her goal is "to win it for the ladies," she says. "I know it's doable. I sense an energy from the callers." (Some of the energy includes catcalls from listeners to
Kidd Chris'
morning show.)
In her first two weeks in Philly, she says, she has discovered "two great sushi places." And New Jersey. Driving home north on Fifth Street, she keeps forgetting to take the tunnel and ends up on the Ben Franklin Bridge.
The circuit
Bob Rovner
was standing outside the Acme in Narberth Friday afternoon, but not selling Girl Scout cookies. The lawyer, radio host, and former state senator and U.S. Senate candidate was collecting signatures on his petitions to run as a Democrat against Republican Rep.
Jim Gerlach
.
Sean Scott
left town to play arena football in Cleveland, creating an opening on the CW57 Crew. Among candidates to replace him is
Jim Romano
, 25, of Levittown, who has gotten an on-air boost from big sister
Kathy Romano
of WMMR (93.3). Voting ends Tuesday at
» READ MORE: www.cwphilly.com
.
Jeff Guaracino
of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corp. and a passel of Philadelphians are in London today for the European launch of his book,
Gay and Lesbian Tourism: The Essential Guide for Marketing
. The book is among the top 10 travel books on Amazon under the gay and lesbian category.
Tune-ins
Main Line dermatologist
Christine Stanko
and Ardmore dance instructor
Scott Lazarov
turn up (again and again) on PBS's
America's Ballroom Challenge
(8 p.m. Wednesday on WHYY TV12).
Center City's
Sylvia Kauders
did a one-shot on the NBC series
Lipstick Jungle
, which premieres this week. On the episode airing Feb. 14, series star
Lindsay Price's
character, Victory, needs to get a hat from the grandmotherly Kauders so she can get her mojo back.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner
Charles Ramsey
did radio in his last stop, D.C. He'll join
Dom Giordano
on WPHT (1210), starting tomorrow (9 to 10 p.m.), for a monthly call-in show.
Athletically inclined
Allen Iverson
has shaved a half-million from the asking price of his Villanova mansion, which went on the market in July. It's now at $5.8 million - or $800,000 more than the Sixer-turned-Nugget paid for it in 2002. The five-bedroom, 9½-bath, three-story French Norman with five fireplaces and four-car garage sits on four acres.
The Philly Auto Show is about new cars, but for Flyers goalie
Martin Biron
, scheduled to appear there Thursday with teammate
Simon Gagne
, his passion is an old one. His wife,
Anne Marie
, gave him a 1969 Camaro Z28 with the original 302 engine for his 30th birthday last summer. It's mostly original, but has been outfitted Flyers-ish. "We changed the interior to black leather," says Biron. "I always wanted the orange and black colors on a '69 Camaro."
Food stuff
Haddonfield's
Chris Maloney
, 27, a Marine pilot whose California-based squadron was heading to the Mideast last week, asked his mother to meet him with Philly food at the refueling stop at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Mary Jane Maloney
called Pat's Steaks in South Philly with an order of 26 to go, she says. After learning of the recipients,
Frank Olivieri Jr.
waived the charge and threw in 26 T-shirts. "They went crazy," says Mary Jane Maloney.
Chew over this as you smear Smart Balance on your mini-bagel:
Joey Chestnut
ate a record 241 chicken wings Friday to win WIP's 16th annual Wing Bowl. At 150 calories per, according to
Jim Fris
of wing provider P.J. Whelihan's Pub, that translates to 36,150 calories - or more than two weeks' worth of food for a guy Chestnut's size.