Hit Strip Club, Win Lap Dance

It's a good thing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer didn't completely shutter its operations when it stopped the presses, or else there would be only one story about the construction of a strip club by Safeco Field. And who said newspapers weren't egalitarian?

On Friday, a judge approved the opening of a strip club "within a home run's distance" of Seattle's baseball stadium, an asset that might have kept Alex Rodriguez from bolting to Texas all those years ago. The plan is to construct — no, not erect, a word that is shockingly absent from both stories— a 5,000 square-foot facility, complete with a juice bar to compensate for the lack of alcohol or food. There will be a "main floor and two mezzanine levels" with "women dancing nude on stages, as well as lap dances in which nudity is not allowed."

So that's sort of fun — but not as enjoyable as the ledes of the two news stories. The Seattle Times' opening was a demure play on words: "'Ripping the cover off' might apply to something other than a baseball in the area of Safeco Field." Not bad.

But the Seattle P-I, now an online-only establishment, went where its print counterpart would not.

Ah, baseball.

America's pastime. Cracker Jack. Cold beer. Hot dogs.

And body glitter?

That's the upshot of a decision issued Friday by a King County Superior Court judge, who cleared the way for a proposed Déjà Vu strip club — adult cabaret in the court's parlance — near Safeco Field.

Stripper's pole meets foul pole.

Long live freedom of the press.

Judge OKs plan to open up strip club near Safeco Field [Seattle Times] Take me out to the strip club? Judge says play ball [Seattle P-I]