SFist Tonight
Week Around the Ists
SFist Tonight
After City Attorney Dennis Herrera asked the city to shutdown Heaven Mini Theatre for performing lapdances without the proper permits (not to mention allowing prostitution inside its doors, just like every other SF hoochie-coochie establishment), the club owner is crying foul. Peter Lambertson claims that his North Beach club is being targeted since they're not playing ball with supposed SFPD blackmailing tactics and city-sanctioned kickback requests.
Soon after Heaven Mini Theatre opened on Broadway in October 2007, police officers told owner Peter Lambertson "we can make things easy for you if you make things easy for us," Lambertson wrote in a sworn declaration filed recently in San Francisco Superior Court."We understood this to mean that he was asking to be paid," Lambertson wrote.
On several other occasions, "patrons who identified themselves as off-duty officers asked to be 'comped' on 'extras,' which is slang for receiving sex for free," Lambertson wrote. "They were told those services were not available and were asked to leave."
Herrera dismissed Lambertson's allegations as "baseless and irrelevant," with the morally-chaste SFPD saying that this is simply the club's last stab at staying open.
But this does raise an interesting point. Why aren't other clubs closed down for their relatively open policy on prostitution? From the tiny massage parlors that dot the Tenderloin to the Nob Hill Adult Theater, all of those esteemed venues are hunky-dory with pay-for-play action. Why aren't they being shut down too? Strange.
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it is where Mr. Keeling shines, isn't it?
I've read that the city turns a blind eye to the pay for play actions in clubs like O'Farrell because if they started to pay serious attention to cracking down, then they would equally have to crack down on similar club-style shenanigans that go on in the Castro.
yeah, and since teh gehz runz this town free prostitution for some and tiny american flags for others...
There are stripper clubs in the Castro with backrooms for prostitution? Where?
I'd never heard of the Nob Hill Theater, but it looks like it may be directly linked to the Heaven Mini Theater.
Link
Also, the main thing with Heaven, based on the articles I've read, wasn't the prostitution, necessarily. It's more about the fact that they are operating without any form of business or cabaret license, and aren't adhering to any laws or regulations so far as how late they stay open, not having a waiver to allow them to operate near other adult businesses, etc. That, and the whole "shooting the bouncers from a competing club" thing. It's the difference between a little hanky panky going on in the back and blatantly causing a public nuisance.
Exactly what kind of verbiage appears in a "proper" lap dance permit?
SEC. 790.36. ENTERTAINMENT, ADULT.
A retail use which includes the following: adult bookstore, as defined by Section 791 of the Police Code; adult theater, as defined by Section 791 of the Police Code; and encounter studio, as defined by Section 1072.1 of the Police Code. Such use shall be located no less than 1,000 feet from another adult entertainment use.
(Added by Ord. 69-87, App. 3/13/87)
Aren't just about all the clubs in North Beach in violation of that ordinance?
I don't know the exact requirements, but I think businesses can either be grandfathered in or apply for a waiver.
why don't these 'tards wear recording devices? jeez, don't they know how to be shady?
Off duty cops expect free sex at strip clubs. Nah, I can't imagine that EVER happening...