(MELROSE PARK) Warning: This story contains a reference to “high-friction bodily interactions for money.”
Or as the not-gonna-take-anymore nuns of Melrose Park also call it in their latest legal assault on Club Allure, their next-door strip club neighbors: Prostitution.
Whether they are called “lap dances,” “hump dances,” or “bed dances” is irrelevant, said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, which is representing the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo. “We have irrefutable evidence that there is, regularly occurring . . . acts that qualify as the crime of prostitution.”
Plus, he added: the term “lap dance” is a “vague phrase; it covers a lot of sins.”The nuns want Club Allure shuttered. In June, nuns in full habits marched to the Stone Park club to publicize what they say is the club’s violation of Illinois’ zoning law, mandating a 1,000-foot buffer zone between adult entertainment facilities and any place of worship and school, the Sun-Times is reporting.
But now the nuns have gone further, saying what goes on inside the strip club is more than simply degrading — it’s illegal.
How can that be so?
Brejcha wouldn’t go into details on Thursday about what specifically has occurred at the club that amounts to prostitution.
“We’re in a convent and that’s part of the problem,” Brejcha said. “I don’t want to be graphic with you here. Believe me we could.”
An amended lawsuit filed this week in Cook County court on behalf of the nuns, neighbors and the village of neighboring Melrose Park adds a little more context:
“Plaintiffs have determined that Club Allure’s dancers or entertainers engage in direct and immediate physical, high-friction full contact with customers’ or patrons’ bodies, and specifically the genital or other sexually sensitive areas thereof . . .” the complaint states.
The lawsuit also details some of the strip club’s ill effects: “wanton drunkenness,” “flashing neon and strobe lights . . . that give the illusion of daylight” and fights, including over a dozen people brawling in the parking lot.
One morning, a female employee was beaten in the parking lot by one of the owners, the court filing alleges. If the woman reported the beating, the owner told her it would be “the last thing she would do,” according to the complaint.
Then in December, bartender Zaira Lugo left the club one Sunday morning after a night of partying, according to the lawsuit. She died after crashing her car just blocks away.On a private Facebook page for Club Allure employees, managing partner Sean O’Brien told employees not to talk publicly about Lugo’s death or he would “tape your mouth shut and staple your face to the carpet,” the complaint states.
Representatives for Club Allure, the defendant in the suit, didn’t respond to calls seeking comment.
Since the nuns first drew attention to the strip club, it has quieted down, Sister Noemia Silva said.
She added: “It’s not a matter of winning or losing. It’s a matter of doing what is right and just.”
But if the nuns wind up losing in court, even bigger changes are in store for the convent and neighborhood, Silva predicted.
“This place will be very, very different because they won’t hold back,” she said.
— Sun-Times
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