Henrietta's relationship with the Klassy Cat Tavern, a strip club on West Henrietta Road, has always been less love-hate than tolerate-hate.

Twenty-four years ago this week, town officials persuaded a state judge to stop the club's grand opening, which promised in newspaper ads to feature "over 35 beautiful women weekly."

Officials asserted that the owners hadn't secured the proper permits to renovate the place, which had been a pub, by adding an elevated stage, poles, dressing rooms and other accommodations half-naked women and randy men require.

Of course, that was just an excuse. The real reason officials wanted to stop the Klassy Cat was to keep Henrietta classy — or at least as classy as a town that already had one strip club called the Half Dollar could be. (That place is now Tally Ho Gentlemen’s Club on East Henrietta Road.)

"It was kind of an image thing for the town," recalled James Breese, the supervisor at the time. "There was this perception that you could put anything you want in Henrietta, that Henrietta would take what other towns didn't want, and we set out to prove that you couldn't do that."

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The Klassy Cat proved you could in May 1993, when a state judge ruled unconstitutional the town's efforts to keep dancing girls from dancing topless, which they've been doing ever since.

But how much longer they'll keep at it is an open question.

The Klassy Cat is for sale and in arrears with the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

The state filed a tax warrant against the owner of the business in October for failing to pay sales taxes, penalties and interest totaling $129,690. The current balance stands at $127,554, according to the agency.

Tax warrants are liens against real property and enable the state to collect through seizing bank accounts or real estate.

The Klassy Cat's $2.5 million asking price includes its 5,100-square-foot building and 2.75 acres on a robust commercial strip known as Automobile Row for its abundance of car dealerships.

From the outside, the Klassy Cat could be mistaken for a public works storage facility. The cream-colored building is squat, windowless and drab, and it looks more like a hangar for snow plows and lawnmowers than a destination for dancers named Bambi, Nirvanna and Vixy.

"To me, it's kind of always been there by itself and kind of out of place," said Henrietta Supervisor Jack Moore, who would prefer the property be used for something else.

He's probably not alone. When the Town Board rejected a special-use permit for the club in 1993, a record 800 residents reportedly gathered at the public hearing to applaud the decision and heckle the Klassy Cat's lawyer.

Dozens of speakers reportedly anticipated the club would be a hub for crime and lamented its mere presence as reflecting a "moral decline" in Henrietta.

"It's very valuable property given that it's on Automobile Row," Moore said. "The highest and best use of the property would be some type of auto dealership."

But also transferable with the property is the coveted special-use permit that the court eventually ordered Henrietta to grant the Klassy Cat.

That ruling moved virtually every town and village in greater Rochester, including Henrietta, to hastily pass zoning laws that relegated new adult-themed businesses to out-of-the-way industrial and manufacturing areas and required them to be a certain distance from homes, churches, schools and parks.

"There's been a lot of interest in it actually for both a use that's similar to what's there right now and for uses that are completely different," said Morgan Todd, the Cushman & Wakefield real estate agent who listed the property. "It's just a matter of getting to the price point they want."

The property was listed in late August, about a month before the state issued the tax warrant. Messages left with the owner, Richard Pennella, through the real estate agent and at the club weren't returned.

Also not returned were all those predictions of rising crime and moral decay stemming from the Klassy Cat. Former and present town officials said the club ran a clean operation.

Indeed, the club was serene during a recent lunch hour. A couple of men chatted quietly over burgers at the bar as a dancer swayed to soft music for a patron seated next to the stage.

Only the sound of her spanking her G-stringed bottom snapped the tranquility, leaving one to wonder whether Henrietta would stay Klassy.

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David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.