OFFICIALS UPSET WITH MEN TRYING TO BUY CLUB

The would-be new owners of the famously troubled Crazy Horse Too gentleman's club have enough hurdles to clear in buying and reopening the club, but they added another one to the pile Wednesday.

They angered the Las Vegas City Council.

"We've been treated very shabbily as a city," complained Mayor Oscar Goodman, saying the city had not been in the loop during the lengthy proceedings involving the club. "Nobody's talked to me about this.

"We've been treated like a stepchild, and I won't have it."

The two men trying to buy the club have until the June 4 council meeting to make nice and get things in order.

And they had better do so by June 30 if they want to have a chance at ever opening the club.

David Dupont and Maheshkumar Patel are the principals in LCC Cafe Nevada, a newly formed company that has offered to pay $32 million for the shuttered topless club.

The club was seized by U.S. marshals when the former owner, Rick Rizzolo, did not sell the club as was required after he pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion.

Several parties are waiting for the sale money, including government agencies that levied fines against the club and a man who was left paralyzed by a bouncer in 2001 when he disputed his bill at the club.

Dupont and Patel asked for a temporary tavern license that would allow them to sell alcohol while a background check -- standard procedure for holders of those kinds of licenses -- proceeds.

But they are having trouble getting the financing together without a liquor license in place, said their lawyer, Jeff Silver.

They have gathered about half of the money, he said, and probably could get guarantees for the rest if they had the temporary license.

Tough noogies, said Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese, who represents the ward where the club is located.

"They ought to have their financing in place" before approaching the council for a liquor license, he said. "Give them a temporary -- how do we know when they're going to get it?

"Either come out and buy it or leave us. I just want it to be over with."

That stance does not bode well for the plans for maintaining the requisite licenses.

That is because the Crazy Horse Too was in business before current zoning codes and therefore was grandfathered in as a topless club that sells alcohol.

Under current rules, if those uses are dormant for a year, the grandfathered status expires, and it's unlikely the licenses would be granted under current rules, city staff said Wednesday.

Silver said that with a temporary liquor license, the club could open for eight hours to "reset the clock" that has been ticking since the club lost its license in June of last year.

Whatever beefs council members have with the Crazy Horse Too and federal agencies, Silver said, they should not be taken out on Dupont and Patel, who are just trying to buy the club.

"I can only say that there are a lot of people who are counting on the approval of this application," he said. "I hope we can overlook this communication problem."