The CEO of a controversial Central City strip club is among five people who were asked to step down after being indicted in September, accused of bribing a New York state tax auditor.

Eric Langan, who headed up dozens of adult nightclubs across the United States including five in Colorado, will remain on the board of RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc., according to a news release, but it is unclear what else he will be doing for the company.

Langan’s X account, which regularly posted about steak specials and nightclub openings, was dark this week and Langan did not respond to text or phone messages from The Denver Gazette asking for comment.

RCI Holdings, which is based in Houston, named Travis Reece as the interim president to replace Langan. RCI Chief Financial Officer Bradley Chhay was also replaced.

Rick’s Cabaret and Steakhouse on Central City’s historic Main Street was open for business over the Thanksgiving weekend. The adult nightclub’s Facebook page is advertising a Christmas night Denver Bronco watch party promising “festive vibes.”

The indictment charges RCI Hospitality Holdings, five of its executives, and three RCI-owned strip clubs in Manhattan with 79 crimes, including conspiracy, bribery, and criminal tax fraud.

It alleges that a state auditor, who is unnamed in the indictment, had a cozy 14-year relationship with RCI executives in which he received elaborate strip club outings for financial favors. The auditor, court document revealed, received at least 13 complimentary multi-day trips to Florida, where he was given up to $5,000 per day for private dances in clubs there.

RCI claims to be “the country’s leading company in gentlemen’s clubs and sports bars.” Of those, it owns five strip clubs in Colorado including Diamond Cabaret in downtown Denver, Scarlett’s and PT’s in other parts of the city and a controversial venue Rick’s Cabaret, which opened this summer in Central City.

Whether the Central City hot spot will remain open for business is unclear. After the indictment, Langan wrote in a text to The Denver Gazette that “We have no intention of closing or selling any of our businesses.”

Still, the city will have a say in whether the sexuallyoriented business, or SOB, will keep its doors open.

A question on the November ballot asked city residents if they wanted to allow an SOB at 130 Main St. They voted to keep the zoning, which bars SOBs from operating within 1,000 feet of homes, schools, public parks and churches, the way it was.

To make things more complicated, Rick’s has been operating contrary to city zoning since this summer.

“The city is exploring its legal options,” said Central City Councilmember Zane Plsek.

Mayor Jeremy Fey said in response to a Denver Gazette question about the club’s status that he “looks forward to all issues being worked out so we can all move on.”

WHEN IT STARTED

RCI Hospitality Holdings bought the property at 130 Main St. for $2.4 million in December 2022 but withdrew its gambling license request with the Colorado Gaming Commission in May 2024, opting instead to bring adult entertainment to town.

RCI banked on the idea that the town would amend the 1,000-foot buffer in the municipal code to 150 feet, allowing it to operate legally. But the council held fast to the 1,000-foot rule.

In response, RCI Holdings sued the 800-person town contending that it violated the company’s civil rights when it sold the building “for a specific stated economic purpose and then abandoned the process of reforming its regulatory regime to accommodate that stated purpose.”

Ironically, Langan said, it was not he, but rather the Central City Council, that invited him to set up shop in town in the first place.

COLORADO CONNECTION

The company has had other recent problems in Colorado, including an investigation into wage theft among its nightclub workers and performers.

A Denver District Court judge ruled last month that strip club entertainers have protections under Denver’s wage and employment laws. The ruling upholds a hearing officer’s determinations involving the Auditor’s Office wage theft investigation into multiple strip clubs in Denver, according to a news release from the Auditor’s Office.

The ruling follows an investigation by the Denver Labor Division of the Auditor’s Office into wage theft involving Diamond Cabaret and Rick’s Cabaret. In February, government officials ordered the company to pay $14 million in back wages and penalties to their workers.

RCI said it will appeal the judge’s decision, saying that “they are on the right side of the law.”

The Denver Labor Division countered that it will not stray from its argument that entertainers are workers under Denver’s laws and that they have the same right to work without wage theft as employees in any other company.