Scott Lindsay wants to bring a touch of Las Vegas to Louisville, Kentucky.

He already has the pretty ladies. He just needs the glamour.

In February, Lindsay, secretary and treasurer of Carson City, Nevada-based Lindsay Management Services Inc., took over management of The Godfather, one of at least 20 so-called gentlemen’s clubs in Louisville, Kentucky, where women strip either topless or totally nude for entertainment.

His wife, Eileen Lindsay, bought the club itself.

Since then, she has put about $250,000 of her own money into the 34-year-old establishment, and her husband has cleaned house. He let go most of the staff when he started doing regular drug testing and background checks, he said.

The Lindsays are betting on the success of adult nightclubs when—because of a case pending in the Kentucky Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in February—their chances of continuing to operate as they do now appears to be in jeopardy.

Attorney Mike Hatzell, who has represented adult businesses for 20 years, expects the court to uphold a Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government ordinance that he said would gut the businesses. It’s the kind of ordinance that has come up in cities across the country, and brings up similar conflicts. Authorities want to get rid of what many see as a seamy form of entertainment. But that form of entertainment is profitable, and it contributes plenty in taxes to governments’ bottom line.

Scott Lindsay, at least, isn’t worried.

“Cities fight and fight and fight adult entertainment, but adult entertainment is still here in some shape or form,” he said.

Adult-nightclub owners argue that, even if government officials do not like their type of business, the city needs them to attract some conventions and tourists. They say that two of their biggest weeks for customers are Kentucky Derby Week and the week of the annual National Farm Machinery Show at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

But Jim Wood, president and CEO of the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that conventions choose Louisville for reasons other than the availability of adult nightclubs, including hotel rates and accessibility.

In his six years as head of the bureau, he said, his staff has given hundreds of site inspections to meeting planners, and the issue of availability of strip clubs never has come up.

Of course, the government is happy to take their tax money, adult-nightclub owners say.

In fiscal 2007-08, for example, adult nightclubs paid Louisville Metro more than $34,000 in liquor-license fees alone. They also paid $33,300 in state liquor-license fees.