The Word vs. The Mirage

Protesters confront local strip club

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NICOLLET -- Armed with little more than a 1978 Chevrolet van and a large sign denouncing looking at women as lustful, a small, hardy group of protesters waited outside the Mirage strip club Saturday night.

As patrons began to arrive around 10 p.m, a tall man in a blue jacket and plaid shirt, Dennis Schwartz, of New Ulm, shouted, "No door is the right door."

The Mirage customers filed into the club quietly, some not even paying attention to the large cardboard sign on the van that read "WHOEVER LOOKS ON A WOMAN WITH LUST COMMITS ADULTERY".

The Mirage created a public outrage and made news all over Minnesota when it opened under the town's nose on Sept. 28. It stayed open for four days before local officials ordered it to close, citing health code violations. In days following, Nicollet and neighboring cities passed resolutions restricting what they called "adult uses" until ordinances could be drafted. Similar ordinances were also passed in Nicollet, Brown, Sibley and other neighboring counties.

The Mirage was opened by two young men from Minneapolis, Matt Halley and Dave Benzinger, who said they wanted to own their own business.

Schwartz, as well as Danny Anderson, a minister with River Valley Christian Church in New Ulm, waited for more would-be patrons to show up while the van chugs away steadily behind them. Inside the van were people, these ones young men and women from New Ulm and Sleepy Eye who decided to get together for the protest.

Some of protesters, like Favian Campos from Sleepy Eye, see it as a moral obligation to protest.

"We're just starting," he said, hands in jacket pocket and steamy breath escaping his mouth. "We're really hoping to turn this place around."

Anderson said he organized the protest after he saw other churches get involved. He said he hopes churches in Nicollet "wake up" and take similar action.

"This is a spiritual war," he said. "And this is one of the symptoms."

Schwartz said he got involved because a strip club in a small town "has a different effect than in Minneapolis" because the community is tighter.

"If we don't start doing something about it now, where's it going to stop?," Schwartz said.

"Morally, not everyone's going to be all right with my business," Halley said late Saturday night. "The more attention you cause us, the more my name gets out there."