Detroit — from www.detnews.com – A judge today deemed the strip club All Stars a nuisance and ordered it padlocked for a year, after finding the bar never checked the identification of a 14-year-old performer.
The girl’s mom discovered her dancing at the topless bar on Eight Mile near Schaefer in April under the stage name “Fantasy” and police charged a club manager with felony child sexual abusive activity.
That was only about a month after the club’s owners had promised to clean up their act by entering into a “consent agreement” with prosecutors for a number of violations dating back to 2003.
“You would think the owners of the business would have been on their Ps and Qs,” Wayne County Circuit Judge Virgil Smith said. “Exactly the opposite took place.”
The club will be closed July 12.
Smith initially ordered the padlocking immediately but then decided to allow the club owners time to work out the details of who would maintain the club while it was closed.
Lawyers for All Stars said they plan to appeal. The club’s attorney, Tim Murphy, said the decision was expected given the political push in Detroit to shut down clubs.
The 14-year-old girl testified the club’s staff never asked for her identification.
Gerald Evelyn, another attorney for All Stars, said the girl was lying. A man claiming to be a club employee produced a driver’s license to The Detroit News the day of the arrest, saying the 14-year-old presented it when she was hired.
“It’s easy to … overreact to things but the evidentiary evidence is thin,” Evelyn said.