Legendary rock club CBGB (music), which is closing its New York doors for good Sept. 30, will move lock, stock and barrel to Las Vegas, according to the club's owner, Hilly Kristal.
Kristal told MTV News that the club, which is being kicked out of its longtime Bowery location by its landlord, would reopen in Vegas sometime in 2008.

"We want to take a lot of this stuff with us, and I think we're going to move to Las Vegas," Kristal told MTV, who also said he'll start taking his club apart as early as September. "I have some developers who have some really great space in the downtown area. So, I'd say sometime in spring we'll be in Las Vegas. It's a big undertaking, and these developers are putting the money into it, and I want to make sure that, for my benefit and theirs, we make this work."

Kristal said he intends to take the spirit of the club with him as well, adding that the new location "won't be the same size or the same shape, but I am going to have all the things that matter there."

"I am taking the bars with me, I am taking the stage--I'm taking the urinal that Joey [Ramone] p---ed in with me. I'm going to take a lot of things--anything that makes this place CBGB."

Kristal, who opened the club in 1973 as a venue for country, bluegrass and blues (hence the acronym), had been locked in a fight for the last few years with the club's landlord, the Bowery Residents' Committee (BRC), which initially hiked CBGB's rent and claimed the club owed about $80,000 in back rent, a figure Kristal disputed in court. While a judge ruled in Kristal's favor last October, the BRC declined to renew CBGB's lease.

The closing comes despite the efforts of many prominent New York political and cultural figures, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to intervene on the club's behalf.

CBGB rose to prominence in the mid-'70s, when punk and new wave acts thrived under the club's open booking policy, which let many performers hone their acts at a time when no other local club would accept them. In addition to the previously mentioned acts, Patti Smith, Television and Suicide also built their initial audiences through performances at the nightclub.

Kristal is working with independent music promoters Rocks Off to book a farewell "festival" over the last two months of the club's New York existence. Specific performers and dates are still under consideration.