Last month we reported that Bowie, Sting and Ivan Kane had picked a location to open their New York City burlesque club, Forty Deuce. The selected building at 19 Kenmare Street was formerly the home of a mobster hangout called Little Charlie’s Clam Bar. Now, according to Downtown Express, a group of neighboorhood residents are looking to put the brakes on the club. They collected 1,200 signatures over a four day period and submitted a petition to the State Liquor Authority on June 19 urging them to deny Forty Deuce a liquor license. Two days later, 20 neighbors attended a Community Board meeting to voice their opinions.
SLA rules prohibit liquor licenses to businesses within 500 feet of churches and schools, and there is a Chinatown Head Start school just a block away from the planned club site. Yet within 500 feet of 19 Kenmare and a proposed side entrance to the club, there are 26 other business sites that already have liquor licenses.
The residents are also suggesting that the club producers have not been completely forthright about the nature of the club. They stated that the original notice submitted by Forty Deuce to the Community Board identified the proposed club as a 3,000 square-foot “lounge bar” with no mention of the burlesque show, and other documentation and news articles have cited the club’s size as 4,500 and 5,500 square-feet. Meanwhile, Kane’s attorney denies the allegation and noted that the burlesque show at the Las Vegas Forty Deuce reveals so little naked skin that no adult entertainment permit is required. Thus far the Community Board has taken no action one way or the other.
Read more about the club on NYMag.com.
Comments
One response to “Who Doesn’t Want a Burlesque Club in Their Neighborhood?”
What a bunch of crap. One would think that New York City wouldn’t be so puritan as to equate burlesque with stripping. Not only that, but they are messing with the plans of David Bowie! They must be smoking that same philistine herb that Rolling Stone is.