DANBURY, Connecticut – The dingy sign hanging from the ceiling reads “Bada Bing Bar.”
But the scene inside Tony Soprano’s fictional strip joint pales in comparison to the one police allegedly found at a Shelter Rock Road “gentleman’s club” Friday night.
Inside the club known as Wiggles, more than a dozen scantily-clad dancers engaged in sex acts – or aggressively propositioned customers – around the rectangular bar, authorities say.
By the end of the night, the floor was littered with paper napkins containing what law enforcement officials euphemistically called “DNA evidence.”
“That’s the first time we’ve seen that type of operation here” in Danbury, said Detective Lt. James Fisher of the police department’s Special Investigations Division. “It’s happened in some bigger cities, but not in Danbury.”
The latest raid was sparked by a series of complaints from the public, according to Fisher, who said prostitution-related activities took place at the bar for at about a year.
SID detectives, working with undercover officers from two out-of-town agencies, raided Wiggles on Friday night. Police said four plainclothes officers entered the club shortly after 8:30 p.m.
The officers were barely inside before the women began exposing their breasts and other private parts, offering lap dances and oral sex, or shoving their hands inside the officers’ trousers, police claim. One woman offered to go home with an investigator if he paid her $200, police said.
All of those activities are a violation of Connecticut liquor laws, said John Suchy, director of the state Liquor Control Commission, which bar physical contact between dancers and patrons. He declined further comment because the police haven’t yet referred the case to his agency.
In all, authorities charged six club employees with prostitution. Three of the women are Danbury residents. The others are from Queens, N.Y.
Even more dancers could have been arrested if police had employed additional undercover officers, authorities said.
“The (officers) only made contact with six of the dancers,” Fisher said in his report. “The other seven were engaged in similar activity.”
Police closed Wiggles temporarily when an employee couldn’t provide a valid liquor permit, but by Monday the permit had been located and the bar was back in business. Attempts to contact club owner Vincent Mavilia on Monday were unsuccessful.
Fisher said Mavilia showed up at Wiggles while the raid was in progress, and “was cooperative” with investigators.
“We can’t say if he had full knowledge of what was going on,” Fisher said.
The club already faces a four-day closing next month because of violations found during a February 2004 inspection, said Suchy.
At that time, inspectors saw dancers exposing their breasts and private parts to patrons, and also found alcohol being served to a minor, Suchy said.
Police identified the women charged with prostitution as Maria Aparecida DosSantos, 36, of Foster Street, Gloria Garcia, 46, of Cornell Street, and Ivanie Solvatel, 39, of Down Street, all in Danbury. The others arrested were Maria Reis, 38, Cleusa Sousa, 51, and Giovana Maria Paula, 24, all from Queens.