Community Board battles strip club

Saying strip clubs encourage prostitution and are a neighborhood embarrassment, Community Board 2 has locked horns with the proprietors of King of Clubs, a “gentleman’s club” seeking to open on Oak Point Avenue.

Last month, the board asked the State Liquor Authority to turn down a liquor license for King of Clubs and enlisted Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and State Assemblyman Marcos Crespo to join in the request.

The board’s hostility came as a surprise to the club’s owners, who say it will bring jobs to the neighborhood and swear it will be carefully policed.

At its November meeting, Monique Dawson, Jimmy Johnson, her partner and fiancé and Peter Flores, their lawyer asked the community board for a letter supporting the club’s application for a liquor license. They presented a petition they said was signed by 400 local residents in favor of opening the club at 1280 Oak Point Avenue.

But when they said 30 of the 50 new jobs would go to exotic dancers and the rest were for security (to be filled for the most part by ex-cops), several members of the board gasped in horror.

The presentation did not last long.

“As soon as we started, someone told us we had a lot of nerve to want to put another strip club in this community,” Johnson said.

“To have you offer this, that has no value to this community, is insulting,” board member Paloma Hernandez, the president of Hunts Point’s Urban Health Plan, told them.

Community leaders continue to oppose the club. Rafael Salamanca, district manager of Community Board 2, believes there is a direct link between venues like King of Clubs and the sex trade.

“We feel that bringing in these kinds of gentlemen’s clubs will bring in prostitution in Hunts Point,” Salamanca said in an interview.

“Unfortunately, in the city of New York this is not outlawed,” the borough president said, in response to questions from The Express.

“If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have it anywhere in the borough!” he said.

“The quality of life in Hunts Point has to change!” Board 2 member, Robert Crespo exclaimed. “These gentleman’s clubs don’t bring anything of benefit to the community. Our women have to be subjected to these ‘gentleman.’”

Hunts Point’s strip club owners insist they are not connected to the sex trade.

“You can’t get laid here. You can’t even touch a nipple,” said Alfred Rivera, owner of Al’s Mr. Wedge on Hunts Point Avenue.

At Mr. Wedge the dancers wear bikinis at all times. At King of Clubs, the dancers will also have to option to go topless, according to Dawson and Johnson.

The owners’ plans for the scope of King of Clubs have been ramped up in recent weeks. On a busy night they now say there would be as many as 40 dancers working the stage.

But the owners insist that the club will be clean and safe. Up to six security guards will be on duty, they say, and there will never be fewer than two.

Johnson has been a corrections officer for the last 15 years. Dawson worked as a corrections officer for 17 years, before retiring four years ago. They say they have extensive contacts in the police department and in other areas of civil service.

In addition to members of their security team, Johnson hopes to attract police officers as patrons.

“If this is a cop bar, the criminal element won’t come here,” he said.

In their effort to forge good relations with the community, on Thanksgiving, King of Clubs offered to donate 50 turkeys to local organizations like Food for Survival and South Bronx Mental Health Council and Community Mental Health Center.

“We worked out seven community facilities in the Hunts Point area and they were eager to have us donate turkeys,” Dawson said. But after the community board’s tongue-lashing, she said, “When we called to drop off the turkeys, every single organization declined to accept turkeys from us.”

Nevertheless, Dawson and her partners say they are confident that they will get their liquor license. At 1280 Oak Point Avenue construction is in full swing. Johnson and Dawson have hired a chef and are even toying with the idea of a breakfast menu.

Yet, referring to the strip club Howard Stern made famous in the 1990s, Johnson acknowledged that the process hasn’t been easy.

“I’m sure the owner of Scores didn’t have to go through this much!” he gripes.

A version of this story appeared in the January 2011 issue of The Hunts Point Express.