Cities and states across the country are offering various incentives for Americans who get the COVID-19 vaccination. Some restaurants and fast food chains are offering incentives, like discounts or freebies, for those who get vaccinated, while states are hosting vaccine lotteries.
Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, a strip club with locations around the world, launched a partnership with the Southern Nevada Health District to encourage Las Vegas residents to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.
“We decided to do it, to partner up with the Southern Nevada Health District just because it was a fun idea,” Ralph James, the General Manager of the Las Vegas location, told Action 13 News.
But the strip club is offering a different kind of incentive: those who get inoculated at their pop-up vaccination sites will receive a platinum membership, a free bottle of alcohol, and “dances from ‘a vaccinated entertainer,'” per a report from The Associated Press.
According to the company’s website, a platinum VIP membership is good for one year and is valid at participating Hustler Club or Deja Vu-affiliated locations around the world. The membership also includes free admission for the cardholder and five guests, 20% off a bar tab, and exclusive VIP party invitations.
“… I feel like it’s getting people vaccinated that maybe were on the fence and to just push everything and get back to normal, see the light of day at the end of the tunnel,” James told Action 13 News.
That’s precisely what happened with 70-year-old Michael Myers.
“I was going to wait, I tell you that,” Myers explained to the AP. Apparently Myers “changed his mind” about getting the vaccine once his wife, Lisa Harper, said that “they could both get it at the Hustler club.”
“A lot of people that wouldn’t ordinarily do it, a lot of guys, they said, they came here because it’s Hustler,” Harper told the AP. “To take away the stodginess of it, to make it Hustler, it’s very clever.”
George Stoecklin went with Meyers and Harper to get his vaccine at the pop-up location.
“Nothing says vaccinations like a stripper pole,” Stoecklin said.
Southern Nevada Health District officials seem to agree this unique pop-up vaccination site is driving participation.
“This is just another way to access our population,” JoAnn Rupiper, the chief nurse of the Southern Nevada Health District who monitored the Hustler Club’s pop-up clinic, told the AP. “It might attract some people who like the novelty of it, I suppose.”
As of Wednesday, the health district — which serves Clark County, Boulder City, Henderson, Las Vegas, Mesquite and North Las Vegas — has given 1,660,681 doses of the COVID vaccine. Of those, 758,057 people are considered fully vaccinated, with another 970,068 who have received their first dose.