Prince George’s County, Md – A multiagency task force visit at the end of August shuttered a Bladensburg strip club operating out of a recording studio storefront, as the task force cited fire and code violations and a missing use and occupancy permit.
More than a dozen inspectors, county police officers and other government officials in the Prince George’s County Livable Communities Initiative Task force arrived at the front door of Another Level Studio on Annapolis Road early Saturday. Studio owner Charles Boyd met Prince George’s County police Lt. Henry White outside, and when White asked to go inside, Boyd struggled with the locked front door behind him.
“He’s not doing good, folks,” White told the other members of the task force.
Once inside, inspectors found business cards and pamphlets for exotic dancers and escort services in the front waiting room, as well as crates of pornographic videos and magazines.
Several male patrons were still sitting in simple metal chairs along the walls of a back room with a raised, carpeted platform in the center as investigators made their way through the business.
There, investigators discovered two stalls, about the size of dressing rooms, along a corridor leading to a cramped dressing room where about a half-dozen women had gathered.
As the women filed out, pulling suitcases on wheels, inspectors found a used condom in one of the small rooms as well as a host of violations, including unpermitted interior walls, strings of extension cords snaking through the rooms and the lack of fire exit signs.
“There’s a little bit of DJ equipment over there,” said CT Wilson as Boyd passed by. “We’re going to make it very difficult for you to open as anything.”