A 16-year era of decadence and debauchery ends tonight with last call at the Baja Beach Club. And the home of College Night, wet T-shirt contests and women competing to pop balloons by bumping into one another will become just another piece of prime real estate in downtown Baltimore.
As many as 3,500 people a week would squeeze in alongside trees with blue leaves, a huge 3-D wave coming out of a wall, a multicolored shark and surfboards on the ceiling, a chandelier made of Smirnoff Ice bottles and black lights and five bars, one of them with thongs hanging above it.
Many Baja fans, some from as far as New York, are returning to toast their memories on a farewell weekend featuring 25 cent beers, a bikini contest, bobbing for limes, races to the parking lot for free T-shirts, men dressing up in diapers and, of course, a wet T-shirt contest.
“You can get beer anywhere in town, but here you can get a beer and a show,” said Sal Di Giorgio, the club?s owner.
Baja patron Charles DiFalco squeezed into the club Thursday night. “It was packed; you couldn?t move around,” he said.
He says Baja?s one of the few bars you can get into to when you?re 18.
And you can slip and slide on the beer-soaked dance floor jamming to everything from pop to reggae to rock ?n? roll.
Not everybody?s so enamored though.
“I?ve hated it every single time I have gone because it?s trashy and it always takes 30 minutes to get a drink,” said Victor Bernardi, a senior at Towson University.
Di Giorgio informed his employees in mid-January of the club?s decision to not renew the lease with the landlord, Keystone Realty.
Di Giorgio said Keystone wants to bring in national retail tenants and charge more for the space. “They have a different vision for this building, and we respect that,” he said.
Keystone, which did not return phone calls, has told him it plans to divide the space and lease it to more than one tenant, Di Giorgio said.
Baja fans will get their fix again, eventually, Di Giorgio says. He says he?s looking for another Baltimore location for a new Baja Beach Club.
“We would like to say this is goodbye for now,” he said. “We’ll be back. I am happy to say we are going out like lions, not like lambs.”
