Vegas nightclub closes after fight over controversial sex shows

UNDATED: In this file image provided by The Act nightclub, patrons enjoy a performance at the club at the Palazzo hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. A judge has ruled that the nightclub needs to clean up nearly half of the skits in a show that some argued was too raunchy for Sin City. (AP)

LAS VEGAS – A Las Vegas Strip nightclub closed over the weekend, a month after a judge ordered it to clean up its envelope-pushing sex shows.

A spokeswoman for The Act club inside The Palazzo resort and casino confirmed the year-old venue was shuttered after a final night of partying Saturday.

An official explanation for the closure wasn't offered.

The club had been in a legal battle with its landlords over risque scenes that included simulated sex acts and performers tossing condoms into the audience.

Sands attorney Charles McCrea Jr. described the material as "what you and I and most decent people consider vulgar, depraved and perverted," according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Clark County District Court Judge Susan Scann ruled in September that the club needed to edit 13 of 30 skits, saying they appeared to run afoul of lease provisions. The conditions of the lease allow the landlord, Las Vegas Sands, to veto tenants that detract from the "first-class" image it wants to project.

The Act defended itself, saying the landlord was fully aware that the shows were inspired by performances at an even more explicit theater in New York City.

"Before opening to the public and since that time, we worked diligently and successfully to ensure our performances were compliant with Clark County Code and the provisions of our lease," The Act's management wrote in a statement in September. "Yet we now learn that LVS expected us to meet additional standards that were never defined or communicated to us, and which are contradictory to other provisions of our lease requiring that we operate similarly to The Box-NYC."