The New York Times is reporting that there are no longer any strip clubs in Hunts Point thanks to community pressure. Just 3 years ago there were about half a dozen of such clubs and now there are none in existence according to a recent Daily News article.
One former club may even become a church.
The mainstream media and certain characters would love nothing more but to sell you an image of a Hunts Point full of drug addicts, prostitutes, and strip joints but we know better.
According to the New York Times:
With its fish-market-perfumed air, waste-transfer stations and a moored prison barge visible just off its coast, the industrial peninsula of Hunts Point in the Bronx has long been somewhat of an indifferent haven for the city’s topless bars and pole dancing parlors.
With names like Club Heat and BadaBing, they proliferated amid the warehouses and next to the Bruckner Expressway after restrictive zoning laws instituted by the Giuliani administration forced them from other neighborhoods.
But one by one, the clubs began to close: Just two years ago, there were four strip clubs in Hunts Point’s 1.6 square miles. Now there are none.
The strip club industry is under broad attack in New York, as opponents have embraced a startlingly effective strategy: Spare the strip clubs, but punish their liquor.
In the last several years, community leaders have found increasing success petitioning the State Liquor Authority to revoke the liquor licenses of numerous strip clubs in New York and deny the applications of new clubs. The opponents cite crime, noise or other quality-of-life issues, or highlight a club owner’s lack of qualifications or possible criminal ties.
“You go after their liquor license,” said Rafael Salamanca, the district manager of Bronx Community Board 2, which covers Hunts Point. Mr. Salamanca has spearheaded efforts that led to the closing of four clubs in the last two years. “They can’t make any money if they don’t have a liquor license.”
Read the full story at the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/nyregion/in-fight-against-strip-clubs-community-leaders-target-liquor-licenses.html
