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The second time a truck crashed into Southeast Powell Boulevard's Lucky Devil Lounge strip club, owner Shon Boulden admits it was kind of funny.
"For some reason," says Boulden, "this place has just been a magnet for these trucks."
In 2016, a truck rammed into the side of the strip club. Poetically, it belonged to country music radio station 98.7 "The Bull" and was covered with images of the station's mascot. Just two years before that, another truck flipped over onto two cars in Lucky Devil's parking lot. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured.
When a third truck crashed into the lounge last month, it became clear to Boulden that Lucky Devil's frequent vehicular mishaps weren't a coincidence.
"This one was not funny at all," says Boulden. "Everything was just fucking demolished."
On a Saturday morning in early April, a full-sized Nissan pickup lodged itself in one of the bar's walls. The driver wasn't hurt, but the Lucky Devil took a serious hit. The truck nosedived through the exterior wall and crashed through the bar on the other side, spewing liquor and shards of glass all over the room.
Boulden believes he's pinpointed the problem. Located in the elbow of a ramp onto the Ross Island Bridge, Lucky Devil is in the center of a hectic traffic pattern and on the receiving end of an abrupt merge lane. "These big pickup trucks keep getting cut off and jumping the curb and launching into our building," he says.
Still, the bar seems to have at least a little sense of humor about its biennial traffic accidents. On social media, Lucky Devil posts Throwback Thursday pictures of the Nissan stuck in the side of the building, one back wheel in the air. Recently, the club posted a picture of a hot dog-shaped Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Photoshopped into the hole in the wall.
"It just kind of lightened our moods up," says Boulden. "Whether it's good publicity or bad publicity, it makes people talk about us."
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