club

   1. see in the club

   2. an agency promoting the sale of a specific product

   Customers, styled as members, usually have a continuing obligation to buy despite not forming an association of like-minded people:

    Now, alas, the eel and pie shop was a video rental 'club'. (Deighton, 1988)

   3. a business which contrives to evade regulations

   Especially those regulations which control the sale of alcohol or the dissemination of pornography. Thus those enrolled as members may be entitled to buy and consume alcohol in unlicensed premises, or to watch pornographic films which it would illegal to show to the general public.