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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Vegan strip club in the spotlight

N.J. mayor sent messages to dancer

Vegan strip club owner Johnny Diablo Zukle poses in front of his club, Casa Diablo, on Thursday in Portland. (Associated Press)
Maria L. La Ganga Los Angeles Times

PORTLAND – Nearly 3,000 miles already separate Casa Diablo from Newark City Hall. But last week, Cory Booker strove mightily to increase that distance.

After word leaked out that the ambitious young Newark mayor had held a brief Twitter flirtation with a comely exotic dancer here, his Senate campaign in New Jersey issued a statement downplaying the incident.

“The only mildly surprising thing about this story is the news that there’s a vegan strip club in Portland,” Booker’s campaign said, indicating that the bachelor mayor knew neither Portland nor Casa Diablo, where one kind of flesh is happily embraced and another strictly prohibited.

Oregon’s biggest metropolis may be recognized as the capital of the craft beer movement, or home to Powell’s City of Books, the self-proclaimed biggest new-and-used bookstore in the world. The animal rights group PETA ranks Portland No. 2 on its Top 10 list of “vegan-friendly cities,” behind Austin, Texas, and just ahead of Los Angeles. Perhaps less well-known, but equally telling, is Portland’s triple-X heart and the legal history that makes it possible.

“This is the strip club capital of the world,” said a 24-year-old woman who goes by the name of Dre and calls herself Casa Diablo’s “house mother.” “There aren’t more than Vegas. Just more per capita. Portland is so different. That’s our theme. Nudity is no big deal.”

She smiled. Tossed a waterfall of dark hair. Clambered up the brass pole on Casa Diablo’s elevated stage. Then dropped a dozen or so feet into a perfectly executed set of splits, her black, thigh-high boots gleaming in the dim red light as a smattering of fully clothed men looked on.

Those boots? They’re vinyl. This is where the vegan part comes in.

Casa Diablo’s owner is Johnny Diablo Zukle, a transplant from Torrance, Calif., near Los Angeles who has eschewed animal products for the last 28 years. Diablo (he rarely uses his Lithuanian last name) said he grew up listening to a vegetarian guru named Dr. John McDougall. At age 21, he banished all animal products from his diet.

A month later, the newly minted vegan was traveling with his mother and aunt and had a revelation while waiting in line in a Stockton, Calif., bagel shop.

“I realized – and I thought out loud – ‘Hey, if I don’t eat animal products, I don’t have to wear them either.’ I could be apart from all the suffering done to animals,” he recounted Thursday night as well-waxed women danced and music boomed. “My mom said, ‘Oh, don’t be a fanatic.’ But it was too late.”

Casa Diablo’s dancers are prohibited from wearing leather, fur, silk or pearls while performing. Order a white Russian from Tori at the wall-length bar and she’ll pour a concoction made with soy creamer. Ditto for the Irish coffees, the Creamsicle drinks, the Eros Euphoria martinis.

The “Mac & Chz” isn’t, as the menu says, “just like mom used to make,” unless your mom is Betty White. The chimichanga is stuffed with “taco soy strips.” The pumpkin spice cupcakes – hand-crafted by a dancer named Sabrina who says she wears “quite a bit more” while baking – are topped with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese frosting.

On this night, in a nod to the kerfuffle over Booker and stripper Lynsie Lee, the special is a Booker Burger. The patty is Casa Diablo’s usual, the van Dyke-bearded owner said: “soy protein, more protein than a regular burger, no saturated fat, no cholesterol, and it’s delicious.”

The big difference is in accouterment. “Extra mayo,” Diablo said, and then said it again. “Because of the mayor.” Mayo. Mayor. Get it?

The Booker Burger was set up on a small table beside a chess set, not far from where dancers strut their stuff. Fries were artfully mounded beside it, and photographers from the Oregonian, TMZ and the New York Post were shooting away.

According to David Fidanque, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon, the state’s constitution is more protective of free speech than is the federal Constitution’s First Amendment.

The state’s constitution was ratified in 1857, and the free expression clause was solidified through a string of court cases in the 1980s and later. A result? The Ultimate Strip Club List catalogs 64 establishments within Portland city limits, or one for every 9,400 or so residents.