For a forgotten era, some new exposure

“I remember the glory days of the Palomino. This was once not only the premier strip club in Las Vegas but in the country,” says attorney Dominic Gentile, the current landlord of the Palomino. Despite the valet service, especially looking at the banged-up outside of the building, it is hard to believe that now. Though cleaned up and in much better repair on the inside than it has been in decades, the Palomino still has the look of a strip club from another era: old bordello-style nudes on red walls.

Usually calling a place legendary in Las Vegas means it has imploded or been replaced a long time ago. But in the case of the Palomino, along with the wrinkles comes a very special monopoly that Gentile hopes with buzz and marketing can restore the old raunchy club to its former place at the top of the list of tourist destinations, even if it is in a rundown section of North Las Vegas.

“I got into the strip club business by being a landlord, and I got to be the landlord by being a criminal lawyer and I got [the Palomino as well as the land it sits on] as a fee,” he explains.

Gentile is one of the best-known lawyers in this city. There are few high-profile cases -- including murder and political corruption -- that happen here in which Gentile’s name does not surface. And as a criminal attorney with a serious interest in the 1st Amendment he is a natural choice for clients in the Las Vegas adult entertainment business. “I’ve been around the adult entertainment industry for 35 years as a lawyer, my entire legal career,” Gentile says. In fact, the legality of the lap dance in Las Vegas was established in 1996 when Gentile successfully represented Club Paradise against the county’s lap dancing ordinance.

How Gentile connected to the Palomino is an only-in-Vegas-type story:

“The short version: Last year I got a call from the man who owned this club. There was a homicide that the Las Vegas police were investigating, and the man who owned this club was a suspect in it. But he hadn’t been charged and still hasn’t been charged. He asked me to assemble a legal team to defend him and his son and this woman he knew for many years who were in fact charged in the murder. I assembled the legal team but to defend a death penalty case is a very expensive proposition. He didn’t have the money, but he did own the club and real estate. I took it as my fee.”

Gentile’s son Adam is the official owner of the Palomino now and the father is the landlord. How cool is it to be given a strip club by your dad? Adam Gentile, whose background includes years working in the strip club business as well as running the topless male revue at the Sapphire, replies: “As soon as I stop having to pay for it, I’ll be happy to say it was given to me. But seriously, this has always been a dream of mine, and when the opportunity came to do it with my father it was great.”

As for the landlord, Dominic Gentile insists that his primary interest in the Palomino is that the land underneath it is zoned for a casino, which he hopes to live long enough to see built but has no plans to attempt. There is a reason the Gentiles are in no rush: Thanks to grandfathering until 2019, the Palomino, one of the oldest strip clubs in Las Vegas, is the only club in the area allowed to serve drinks to customers in the presence of all-nude dancers.

Despite this obvious selling point, over the years the Palomino fell off the radar of tourists who instead took their business to an explosion of topless bars marketing to them behind the Strip. These clubs include places such as Treasures Gentlemen’s Club & Steakhouse, Seamless (which books DJs) and the 1-year-old Scores Las Vegas, which have none of the seediness of traditional Vegas bump-and-grind joints; rather they offer mimicry of the decor and service of high-end casino resort nightclubs. They are places where tourists can feel safe and comfortable.

Meanwhile, according to Adam Gentile, when he took over the club this year, the Palomino wasn’t simply forgotten, it was neglected. The Gentiles say they have sunk $1.2 million into improvements. They also have begun a marketing strategy of bringing in adult film actresses as featured dancers on weekends.

At the end of August they held a grand opening weekend for their revamped Palomino featuring retired adult star Sunset Thomas. The club was packed. Thomas now records a weekly Internet radio show as well as serving as the club’s official spokesmodel. The results are already showing. Beating out the newer and trendier clubs, the Palomino was dubbed one of “Vegas’ top two experiences in skin” in Rolling Stone’s Oct. 5 issue.

On select nights, the Palomino also offers for ladies the only fully nude male dancers in Las Vegas history. For now unescorted males are not allowed to attend, but Gentile says he has not ruled out one day catering to a gay clientele. “I’ve considered it. It is a very, very delicate situation only because if I do start marketing to them it is very easy to lose your mainstream clientele because they start thinking the guys are gay. The girls want to see heterosexual guys. The guys don’t so much mind; they just appreciate the male form.”

In the end, Dominic Gentile does not see his involvement with the Palomino as the chance result of a barter arrangement with a client but rather as the part of a new vanguard in ownership for Vegas strip clubs. He compares the nudie bar business to what the casino racket was in another famed Vegas era.

“If Howard Hughes landed in Las Vegas today he would be looking at the gentlemen’s club industry. Clubs like this can hold up to 65% of their gross revenue if they are managed correctly. What is happening is that mainstream businessmen, people who look at numbers, have become attracted to this industry.”

In short, though Gentile doesn’t put it this way, ownership passing from the sort of people Gentile represents to people like Gentile.

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For more on what’s happening on and off the Strip, see latimes.com/movablebuffet.