Just weeks after being sold to a Nappanee man for nearly $1 million, Stimmelators Gentlemen’s Club was sold again in February. Dharmesh Patel is listed as company president and secretary on a disclosure form dated Feb. 2 and submitted to the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, the ATC confirmed Tuesday. The sale was discussed after the March meeting of the county ATC. Patel attended the Dec. 4 local board hearing along with company founder and former owner Sam Stimmel and Dom Carl Gonzales, 38, Nappanee, who was introduced then as the new owner. Gonzales acquired the club for $950,000 – almost twice the $500,000 offered by the former operator of strip clubs in Fort Wayne. Patel was introduced as a friend of Gonzales assisting in the sale, and as the operator of two Hampton Inn hotels in Elkhart County. The local board voted at that meeting to deny renewal of the alcohol license for Stimmelators. Their decision was soon overruled by the state, which approved renewal on appeal. Elim Smith, county board member, invited Indiana alcohol commissioners to attend the March meeting in an email to state board member Floyd Dale Grubb, but no one attended. Smith also asked in the email for some explanation for why “the decision at the county level was not even considered by the state board members,” echoing frustration board members expressed at their January meeting. “Do they make deals with the state, or what is going on?” he wrote in the Feb. 6 message. “The state has overridden every decision to refuse a license since I have been on the board for the last seven or more years.” Grubb responded, “I have reviewed the file on Stimmelators. There are three new commissioners since the commission action and the person who reviewed the permit has left,” according to a copy of the email Smith provided. “Local board decisions are always considered, with final disposition determined by state statute, they are never ignored. No decision is final until the full commission action after the local board hearings. I cannot speak to past overrides, but know state statute requires certain actions be taken by the commission.”
