“Hoochie Hut” strip club sign raising eyebrows, concerns

By Hannah Mackenzie

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    WAYNESVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — A sign in Waynesville is causing some controversy.

The bright green sign reads: “Future site of The Hoochie Hut – 24-hour adult superstore and strip club”.

Rich Black, who lives feet away from the sign, has some concerns.

“It’s not appropriate,” Black said. “I’m glad I don’t have kids here. They had some fun with the word ‘coming’ and that’s just not appropriate I mean, really? Come on!”

In addition to traffic and parking issues, Black said he’s worried about the financial impacts of the potential new business, and he did some online research.

“The only thing that would be worse for lowering your property value would be if you have a bad school district,” Black said. “It would be better if this was a sewer plant instead of a strip joint!”

According to Black, he also looked up Haywood County’s planning and zoning regulations.

“You can’t have anything like that unless it’s more than 1,300 feet from the edge of the property,” Black said. “I’m one of those that say you can do whatever you want with your property, but if it’s against zoning ordinances as far as I know, or it’s seriously impacting people next to you, then maybe we need to think about this have a meeting of the minds.”

Black said he hopes the whole thing is a joke.

Property owner, Dustin Smith, declined to go on camera but told News 13’s Hannah Mackenzie right now he is using the land to store cars as an extension of his vehicle repair business. Smith stayed tight-lipped about future plans for the property.

Myrna Campbell, who lives in the neighborhood across from the sign said she doesn’t believe the proposed strip club is real.

“It’s just his way of striking back at the neighbor who questioned what his intent was for the property,” Campbell said.

Campbell, who serves as secretary of the Hunt Estates Homeowner’s Association called the sign an act of retaliation after neighbors brought up an issue of Smith storing cars on the lot.

“Our main concern is that regulations be followed, and it be done properly if he is going to use that as a place to store inoperable vehicles,” Campbell said. “It’s just unfortunate that he has chosen to behave in this manner because all that was done initially was when one of the homeowners saw the junk cars on the lot, all she did was call and ask what his intent was with the property and he got angry about that and this is his retribution, I guess.”

According to Campbell, she has written to the Haywood County manager citing concerns.

Hoochie Hut or not, Smith said he does plan to add privacy fencing around his property.

A business registration search for ‘Hoochie Hut’ on North Carolina’s Secretary of State website came up with zero results.

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