According to strippers and other exotic dancers interviewed by the L.A. Daily News, it was highly irregular for an employee like Roberta Busby to be allowed to slip out of even a “hole in the wall joint” like Babes n' Beer with patrons. Yet this is what happened about 1:30 a.m. last Thursday, when the 27-year-old Busby was seen leaving the Tarzana bikini bar with a man and woman
identified as Rianne Theriault-Odom and Nathaniel Petrillo. Police believe the pair doused Busby with an accelerant such as gasoline and set her on fire.
Busby, a single mother of two, remains in critical condition at the
Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks with burns covering more than 40 percent of her
body. Her alleged attackers remain at large. The
pair are said to have frequented Babes n' Beer and Theriault-Odom is
thought to have possibly been rejected for a job there.
The DN was told by Jenna Presley, who works as a stripper and adult-movie actress in the San Fernando Valley, that “responsible club owners and managers don't let performers leave with
clients and will usually escort dancers to their cars and watch until
they drive off.”
Others involved in strip clubs or bikini bars claim in the article that the attack on Busby was a one-off incident that probably had nothing to do with the Oxnard Street club and shouldn't “reflect badly on all adult entertainment.”
The club's Web site, which variously spells its name as “Babes & Beer,” “Babes and Beer” and “Babes n' Beer,” makes no mention of the crime.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.