Community Board 2 is continuing its crusade against strip clubs that it says tarnish the neighborhood’s reputation, attract prostitution and violence and prey on women.
At its Jan. 11 meeting, the board turned down a plea from the owner of the shuttered BadaBing topless club to support his effort to reopen.
As it has done before with similar requests, board members told the proprietor to take a hike.
Felix Cuesta plans to reopen the topless club at 1098 Lafayette Avenue near the Bruckner Expressway, under the new name of Platinum Pleasures. Cuesta said the place has been closed for renovation since he bought it in November, 2009, but is almost ready to reopen. BadaBing operated between 2006 and 2009.
Cuesta and the head of the new club’s security detail asked the board for a letter of support to send to the State Liquor Authority. Such a letter is a factor in the state agency’s decision to grant a license to serve booze, giving community boards leverage when a bar or club wants to open.
Platinum Pleasures will cater to “higher end” clients, they promised, adding that “professional athletes” would be among the customers of the club, which would have the capacity to serve 133 customers.
BadaBing, named for the strip club in the TV series “The Sopranos,” also billed itself as high end, boasting that it was “New York’s Only Upscale Latin Gentlemen’s Club.”
“We’re not gonna have street kids” or “people walking in with baseball caps and things like that,” they told the board.
“There are no athletes in this community, so let’s be real,” retorted board member John DeRigg.
The board’s chair, Ian Amritt, who runs after-school programs at the non-profit group UNITAS in Hunts Point, said the girls in his program are vulnerable to the lure of a few bucks to work in the area’s strip clubs.
“The sweet nothing that they sing into their ears was the straw that broke their backs,” Amritt told the owner, adding, “I would be reckless as chair of this board to support your business because of what I see happening to young women in my program every day.”
Philip Rivera, commanding officer of the 41st Precinct just across the Bruckner Expressway from the club, told the board there had been numerous stabbings, shootings, slashings and a homicide during the BadaBing’s four-year run at the location. In addition, police made four arrests for prostitution on the premises and recorded numerous cases of booze being sold to underage patrons, two incidents of drug sales and three DWIs.
“Proximity to the precinct was not enough of a deterrent,” he said.
Board members voted unanimously to turn down the new owner’s request for a letter of support.
In December 2010, the board turned down a request for a letter of support for a liquor license from the would-be owners of a topless bar to be called King of Clubs that was slated to open on Coster St. Instead, the board sent the Liquor Authority a letter asking it to deny that owner’s application, and residents picketed at the site while construction was going on.
The state agency denied King of Clubs’ request for a liquor license, dooming its efforts to open.
The board’s opposition carries more weight when a new club seeks to open than when a license is up for renewal, according to SLA spokesman William Crowley.