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DiCarlo's on Central Avenue in Colonie in 2014.
COLONIE — After losing a lawsuit filed by former "Baywatch" cast member Carmen Electra and two other actor-models for using their photos in advertising with permission or compensation, DiCarlo's Gentlemen's Club, one of the region's most venerable strip bars, will close temporarily after business on Saturday, according to a note posted Thursday on its Facebook page.
Losing the lawsuit, filed in January 2020 in U.S. District Court in Syracuse, prompted the bar's insurance carrier to decline to renew its coverage, and it has been unable to find a new provider, according to the note, which says, "for right now we can not operate as an uninsured entity."
DiCarlo's owner, Larry Davis, a local entrepreneur who has holdings in varied fields including hospitality and communications software, was unavailable for comment Thursday morning. The club's founder, Sal DiCarlo, who died in 2012, was a decades-long friend of Davis'. DiCarlo's estate sold him the club property, at 1165 Central Ave., and a building next door with ground-floor retail space and upstairs apartments.
When Davis took over, in 2014, the operators of DiCarlo's were announced as Tess Collins, whom Davis also backed in McGeary's Pub in downtown Albany, and Shahila Abbasi, then the head chef at McGeary's. Their involvement made DiCarlo's one of only a handful of strip clubs in the country owned and operated by women. Abbasi has left McGeary's, and Collins, who was initially named in the lawsuit but had its claims against her thrown out by a judge, said Thursday she is no longer involved with DiCarlo's.
A potential reopening date for DiCarlo's was unclear. According to the Facebook note, "We will be working on the situation, and upgrading the club in the meantime." The note said the final three days of business for now are Thursday through Saturday this week. Still feeling the effects of the pandemic, DiCarlo's recent hours have been limited to 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday to Saturday.
The note seemed to acknowledge misappropriating the images of Electra and her co-plaintiffs, Lucy Pinder and Irina Voronina, for use in racy ads on social media.
"We made the mistake of using the likeness of a famous actress in one picture on our website," the note says, adding, "She and a group of lawyers sued us. We lost the lawsuit." It was not immediately clear if the suit was heard by a jury.
Electra has "never been hired to endorse DiCarlo’s, has received no remuneration for Defendants’ unauthorized use of her Image, and has suffered, and will continue to suffer, damages as a result of same,” the lawsuit said. It said the same for Pinder and Voronina.
The lawsuit alleged the club illegally used an image of Electra and altered it to make it appear she worked at DiCarlo’s by showing her posing on a stripper pole with the words: “Dating a stripper is like eating a noisy pack of chips in church. Everybody looks down at you in disgust but deep down they want some too.”
Pinder, 36, a British model and actor who competed on "Celebrity Big Brother" and once appeared in a movie called “Strippers vs Werewolves,” was depicted in multiple ads for DiCarlo’s. Voronina, who was Playboy magazine’s Miss January 2001 and was first St. Pauli Girl to ring the New York Stock Exchange closing bell for the beer company, has had roles in “Reno 911!: The Movie,” “Balls of Fury,” “Piranha 3DD” and “Killing Hasselhoff.” Images of both were used in DiCarlo's ads on social media without permission or compensation, according to the suit, and neither ever worked there or agreed to endorse it.
Steve Barnes has worked at the Times Union since 1996, served as arts editor for six years, and since 2005 has been a senior writer. He generally covers restaurants, food and the arts, and is the Times Union's restaurant columnist and theater critic. Steve was also a journalism instructor at the University at Albany for 12 years. You can reach him at sbarnes@timesunion.com or 518-454-5489.