The Camelot Club, which has long played host to business professionals, legislators and lobbyists at its prominent top floor location in downtown Baton Rouge’s Chase Bank South Tower, will cease operating at 5 p.m. today after 49 years in business.
Owner Tom Tanner says the club’s membership has dramatically declined in recent years, adding that with the club facing a “dramatic” rent increase it can no longer afford to stay open.
“We can no longer be a viable club,” he says.
Tanner declined to provide specific details about the club’s financial loss but says the last five years have been a struggle.
“Our expenses are just way too high and the economy has gotten to our members,” he says, adding the decision to close was made in recent days. “There’s no good time to do it. We couldn’t continue to lose money.”
There’s no chance the club will reopen in another location, Tanner says. It would simply be too hard to set everything back up. Tanner says he also doesn’t know for certain what will happen to the club’s space on the 21st floor of the Chase Bank South Tower.
Tanner purchased the club in 1999 after the Texas-based ClubCorp, which owns and operates private golf and country clubs, announced plans to close the club, citing a rent increase.
Tanner says at its peak the club had 900 members. Currently, there around 400, he says. New members would primarily be brought into the club on the recommendation of existing members, Tanner says, or the club would contact someone it believed would be interested in joining. He attributes some of the loss of members to attrition—people dying or moving away.
Existing members were still proposing new members in recent years, he adds, but not nearly enough to make up for those lost through attrition. He also says lobbyists—who historically have taken politicians to lunch and dinner at the club—stopped spending top dollar for meals at the club when new ethics rules were put into the place in recent years. The club also has been used for weddings and other large events. Tanner says alternate locations for such events booked for later this year at the club have been found.
“It’s a hard thing,” Tanner says. “I don’t know if the business model even is viable anymore.”
—Alexandria Burris
