![]() ![]() Maybe they’re not always spit-polished (“definitely a hole,” one online reviewer wrote about Frank Day’s in 2015), but word gets around: Here, it gets wild. “Frank Day’s is the pulse of the people there, because you can’t get in the parking lot.”Įstablishments like Frank Day’s are well-known in the pheasant hunting community. You can’t get in,” said Gregory County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, describing the rush of hunters to the county during the season. There are people sleeping in their cars in Dallas on opening weekend. His pilot landed in the field across the street from the bar. ![]() Reportedly, one wealthy hunter once arrived via helicopter. “Hunt all day, play all night,” says a poster in a nearby lodge, advertising Frank Day’s, and small buses from lodges near and far pull into the bar’s dirt parking lot, disgorging hunters. Inside, a neon sign behind the bar declares this the “No Wives Club – Corporate Headquarters.”ĭallas is the undisputed center of evening attraction for hunters at dozens of nearby hunting lodges. No business exhibits the seasonal change in south-central South Dakota quite like Frank Day’s Bar.Ī bucking bronco statue rears above the front entrance of the establishment, a maze-like cluster of interconnected buildings, fronted by a large, dusty parking lot just off the highway. Out-of-state hunters adding up to nearly half the county population drive and fly in this remote county. It sits amid pheasant country, home to a short-lived annual gold rush. Highway 18 in Gregory County claims valuable real estate. There shouldn’t be a lot of money to make in Dallas, a blink-and-you’ll-miss it town surrounded by rolling hills and farm fields.īut the community along U.S. Reached by phone, said she had no comment, said thank you, and hung up. The Argus Leader contacted Day for this article. Day gave a tour of her establishment, but she chose not to walk through the back portion of the bar, saying the door to the back was locked. The Argus Leader visited Frank Day’s in September and spoke to Day for an article about the changes in pheasant season over the years. “I’m sure that’s why Shelly thinks she can get away with it, because so many women are used to being treated so horribly.” “A lot of women, I feel, definitely stick around and stand for being treated like that, because a lot of women have low self-esteem, and that’s what pimps look for,” she said. But not every dancer has that choice, she said.ĭay’s behavior fit a pattern all too familiar to women who have found themselves at the mercy of those more interested in selling bodies than respecting workers who strip and dance for money, Whitney said. “She kept reminding me about how easily I could be replaced, like I meant nothing to her.”ĭay’s verbal abuse didn’t stop, so Whitney did. ![]() “She was yelling a lot, and it was just unnecessary,” Whitney said. She stayed in the owner's rental trailer, which she called rundown and dirty. But in remote small towns, dark backrooms, and private lodges and trailers, the line to prostitution and trafficking can get blurry, then crossed. Dancers, trapped by fees or other debts, may feel no choice but to do whatever it takes to get paid. She planned a trip to Day’s bar.Įxotic dancing is legal. ![]() Whitney messaged and called Shelly Day, current owner of the bar founded by her father. But the bar has become legendary as a South Dakota destination for groups of hunters, mostly male, sometimes wealthy, looking for after-dark entertainment.įor dancers, that’s an alluring jackpot. They can trap freelance dancers in a web of exorbitant fees, throwing them into debt and making them vulnerable to being illegally exploited by traffickers and hunters.įrank Day’s Bar is only one such short-term, fully nude strip club. Pop-up strip clubs, while legal, have their own place in the shadow. It can be easy to overlook by small farm towns that increasingly rely on hosting a flood of rich pheasant hunters to offset losses from troubled agricultural markets. The hunting season's dark side stands in stark contrast to South Dakota’s friendly, clean-cut image. But increasingly it is a commercial enterprise, one that comes with a dark side: sex trafficking and pop-up strip clubs that cater to hunters here for a good time. Pheasant hunting season was once a homespun South Dakota tradition. Frank Day’s opens a short-term strip club, specifically catering to a rush of pheasant hunters who travel here from all over the country toting shotguns and cash to burn. For about three months of the year, from September to November, the bar and restaurant transform into a completely different establishment. ![]()
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