from www.freep.com – An irritated federal judge today ordered members of Lincoln Park City Council to approve a liquor license transfer for a strip club or face contempt charges and daily fines of $12,000.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds was also frustrated that city officials are claiming the Larry Flynt Hustler Club is violating several building codes, after building permits were approved in March 2008.

Dennis Chegash, the city’s building and engineering manager, explained that the strip club builders put on a third floor without proper approval.

“This sounds to me like a case of: Too Little, too late,” Edmunds said. “The building is all constructed and ready to go and the plans were approved in March of 2008. Did you not know a third floor was being built?”

Chegash said he tried to put a stop to the third floor construction, prompting the judge to schedule an evidentiary hearing on the matter for Thursday.

However, she told city council members in attendance that they faced serious sanctions if they did not approve a liquor license transfer at tonight’s council meeting.

“If not, your clients face grave danger of being held in contempt of court and fines of $12,000 a day,” she told city attorneys.

Some council members held up the transfer last week even though it has already been approved by the state.

Attorneys for the club have said that the city has illegally held up the building’s opening as the matters were already settled in a consent judgment last year. Edmunds has already approved the consent judgment.

The $4.2-million Hustler club is at John A. Papalas Drive and Outer Drive in Lincoln Park.