BOULDER, CO — Dan Kennedy isn’t yet a sophomore at the University of Colorado, but he’s got a dream for his future. Like many Americans, he thinks opening a business might be a good idea. After all, when there’s no job security anyway, one might as well become self-employed! Kennedy’s business plan only calls for his shop to be open once a week, but it will serve up two of the country’s favorite things: coffee and boobs. There are few things better for perking up the early hours than buying a cup of Joe from a tassel twirling barista, after all.
August is the month when he hopes to hand out pasties to his topless early morning coffee waitresses, but for now he’s still interviewing potential help.
Interest in his idea is high enough that a Craigslist ad has garnered a number of interviews with women keen to earn tips from thirsty, barely awake people looking at their tits and men interested in bouncing any unruly caffeine fiends who think they need more cream in their coffee than is necessary out of the establishment.
Wages are good; $80 – $100 for a morning shift – and that’s not counting tips.
Of course, he doesn’t have a location yet and he’s not sure just yet what all the requirements are to keep his topless coffee shop on the right side of the law, but the Daily Camera indicates that he’s hoping he can take up some space on campus, although he’s willing to try University Hill, if it comes down to it.
Although Kennedy thinks that serving drop coffee and prepackaged goodies will allow him to set up shop with “no license and no regulations,” university representative Bronson Hilliard says the college itself might have a few things to say about the proposed business, including how it fits into the student code of conduct’s prohibition against adult businesses being run on site.
“This is a half-baked idea,” he told the Camera, observing that although “normal campus activities” can be conducted in rented conference rooms, a topless coffee shop “is not going to be allowed.”
Kennedy, who thinks a $12 cover charge and ID checker should keep things profitable and civilized, realizes that not everybody is going to like the idea of students waking up and smelling the coffee while being able to tell if a girl is naturally or artificially enhanced. “It’s probably going to cause a pretty big stir,” he admits.
Hopefully it won’t attract as much attention as a topless coffee shop in Maine had to contend with. That bit of bubble and tweak resulted in 150 applications for 10 positions — and an arson fire that destroyed the building within four months of opening its doors.
Boulder is struggling to determine the zoning and licensing preferences of area strip clubs, with the city’s mayor, Matt Appelbaum, observing that “Our regulations don’t really preclude these business,” although he also believes that “There clearly are locations where they are not appropriate.”
Kennedy will learn soon whether a conference room at his college of choice is one of those locations.
