San Francisco – from www.sfgate.com – The owner of a North Beach strip club that the city is trying to shut down for code violations says he’s being targeted for refusing to pay off police and other San Francisco officials, according to court documents.
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.”
Police officials rejected the accusations as a desperate attempt by a beleaguered owner running an alleged front for prostitution.
“They’re grasping at straws,” said Central Station police Capt. Jim Dudley, who had objected to the club even opening. “They’re in the final throes of their quote-unquote business.”
City Attorney Dennis Herrera asked a judge last month to close Heaven, saying it has been brazenly operating without permits and serving as a front for prostitution. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19.
Heaven’s new court filings do not name any officers, and a spokesman for Herrera dismissed the kickback allegations as “baseless and irrelevant.”
“If Heaven’s owners have actual evidence of bribery, the city attorney would welcome the opportunity to see it,” spokesman Matt Dorsey said. “But even if they do, it still wouldn’t give them license to run an illicit brothel in violation of a raft of state and local laws.”
Herrera asked a judge last month to close Heaven, saying that beyond the permit issue, the club is a public hazard and appears to be linked to an April 9 shooting that injured two doormen at a competing club nearby. Heaven’s owner disputes that, and no one has been arrested in the shooting.
Heaven’s business registration lists its address as 1054 Kearny St., where there is a small side door, but the main entrance is around the corner at 483 Broadway, directly above a pornography shop.
Officials say the club violates at least three planning codes: operating after 2 a.m., operating on a story of a building not authorized for commercial use, and operating an adult entertainment business within 1,000 feet of another such establishment, according to court documents.
Club owners have ignored cease-and-desist orders from the Planning Department and failed to show up at a hearing before an appeals board last July, records show.
Attorneys for Heaven contend this is a case of selective enforcement, saying in court filings that all 16 other strip clubs are out of compliance with municipal law, including clubs owned or affiliated with DéjÀ Vu Inc., a national club operator. Eight DéjÀ Vu clubs that are clustered within a few blocks of the intersection of Broadway and Columbus Avenue are not 1,000 feet apart, Heaven’s attorneys said.
“Unlike the other clubs on Columbus and Broadway, Heaven Mini Theatre refuses to pay off the police,” attorney Gregory Walston wrote. “As a result, the police’s planning enforcement officers began issuing citations against Heaven Mini Theatre. … It is also well known that the other clubs pay off the police and other city officials, most notably the DéjÀ Vu clubs, who in turn allow the clubs to operate.”
Axel Sang, marketing director for DéjÀ Vu’s clubs on the Broadway corridor, called that allegation preposterous. An attorney for those clubs said they’re in compliance with zoning and other laws.
“It’s just a last-ditch effort by (Heaven) to target legitimate businesses,” Sang said. “They’ve got their problems with the city, and they’re trying misdirection.”