Tunica, MS—
FAST FACTS:
- Stella Maris restaurant owned by topless club owner
- Newspaper gets call to place ad for "Topless Dancing" at restaurant
- Manager says "no topless anything" going on now
(Tunica, MS 3/2/2010) A controversial Cordova Restaurant may have tipped its hand to become a topless club.
Unfortunately, it may have tipped its hand to a local newspaper.
It started with a phone call to "The Tunica Times".
A copy of the advertising order, shows a person claiming to represent the Stella Marris restaurant requested an ad featuring "topless entertainment".
The call came Monday to the newspaper, and what the caller wanted practically stopped the presses.
The advertising order shows a Randy Anderson of the Stella Marris restaurant made the call. "I started taking down the actual ad copy information from him and he said 'fine dining', the address and then his last words to me were 'topless entertainment'," said Peter Thomas of the Tunica Times.
Thomas asked the man to hold on while he consulted the Times' Publisher, which triggered more questions.
"First, I thought, well, I just said we don't take that kind of advertising. But then I got to thinking about it and said, 'Wasn't that the place in Cordova that all the controversy was about and they weren't going to be a topless entertainment facility, they were going to be a restaurant." said Publisher Brooks Taylor.
"Stella Marris" has remained controversial since bricklayers put down the first concrete block.
It's reportedly owned by topless nightclub executive Steve Cooper which had neighbors had feared having a strip club just across the highway.
But the restaurant opened last fall, with steak and seafood, but no topless dancers.
Bill Moore who tells us he just started Tuesday as manager of the restaurant, says he doesn't know a Randy Anderson and says there's no intention to turn this place into a topless club.
When reached by phone, Mr. Anderson denied trying to place the ad, and said he did not want to be quoted directly on the incident.
But the call that came to the newspaper raises new questions about the intentions of the restaurant's owners, if the man on the phone really represented the place, and what the future may hold. "I did feel like the guy was a little guarded, reluctant to tell me the whole story," said Thomas.
Late Tuesday, we heard back again from Mr. Moore who emphatically stated that as of "today" there's no topless dancing going on at Stella Marris. When asked if there were plans for the future, he would only say at the moment, there's no topless "anything" going on at the restaurant.
