The Strip’s Free-Drinks Offer Has a Price

The good news is the Strip--the famed stretch of Sunset Boulevard--was alive and kicking on Saturday night. Clubs up and down the street were hot and sweaty with wall-to-wall bodies, and the scenes outside each venue recalled the booming ‘80s, with dozens of band members promoting gigs with flyers and the requisite schmoozers just hanging out.

The bad news is the Strip--a brand-new Saturday night club at Casablanca/Club 8240 in West Hollywood--was nearly dead on arrival.

Like the Roxbury across the street and the Union next door, the Strip was packed with guests and boasted a huge mob around the entrance. Lured by promoters with ads promising “all you can drink for free all night long,” thirsty adventurers patiently waited for burly bouncers to grant them entry.

“Free,” however, meant $15 at the door, which customers learned only after making the first cut. Those willing to cough it up should have remembered Las Vegas’ golden rule: Nothing’s free. Or better yet, Ernest Hemingway’s time-honored law: Anything that was ever any good you pay for.

Clearly, the Strip is neither good nor free. Promising the town’s best deejays, live performances, showgirls and game tables (strictly for legal purposes), the Strip should have been able to deliver at least a partially decent time. Instead, it offered generic club fare. More imaginative packaging can be had at Grand Ville, Sin-a-Matic and Saturday Night Fever, to name a few.

Oh, and maybe let the performers in for free next time. The group Fluorescein was scheduled to go on at 11 p.m., but left after being told it had to pay--you guessed it--$15.

* The Strip on Saturdays at Casablanca/Club 8240, 8240 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 21 and over, $15 cover. (310) 285-8335.

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The Buzz: Out of Control, a new Friday dance club at West Hollywood’s Roxbury scheduled to open Friday, offers live music in the club’s Cellar Room and music from the ‘70s and ‘80s in the dancing areas. . . . The StarMaker Club, a new Tuesday night theme club at Studio City’s Aftershock, is inviting “models/actresses” to “network with producers, directors and agents.” FYI, B.Y.O.S.G. (Bring Your Own Stun Gun.)

* Out of Control, (213) 650-4651; the StarMaker Club, (818) 386-5969.