Update: The D.C. Government no longer owns a strip club

Update: The Washington Business Journal reports Stadium Club has been cleared to reopen after a $150,000 tax debt owed by owner James Redding was paid. The D.C. Government no longer owns a strip club.

The original post is below.

The District of Columbia now owns a strip club.

The District's Office of Tax and Revenue has seized the Stadium Club, a steakhouse and gentleman's club popular with professional athletes and hip-hop artists and the home for a reality show called "Strip Club Queens," in order to pay off the debts of owner James Redding. Redding operated TruOrleans restaurant on H Street NE until September, when the city shut that troubled venue down over more than $100,000 in unpaid sales and use taxes. Redding never paid his debt, the city says, so it moved to seize his assets – including Stadium Club.

But before you start cracking jokes about council members popping bottles with Rick Ross, Wale or members of the Redskins, you should know that the city will not actually go into the strip club business.

"We're not interested in running the day-to-day operations of club," says Natalie Wilson, a public affairs officer for the OTR. "What we'd like to do is recoup the money the owner has collected –- the sales taxes that patrons have paid -– on behalf of the District."

To that end, the city is able to sell "all of the assets, whatever's of value" inside the building, as well as the building itself, Wilson says. "What we own, we can sell."

So, how much would you pay for a used stripper pole?