Strip club scene X-panding
Hunts Point activists protest state’s OK on liquor license
ANOTHER strip club will get to open in Hunts Point soon, despite vigorous resistance from some local politicians and residents.
Platinum Pleasures at 1098 Lafayette Ave. was recently granted a renewal of its liquor license from the State Liquor Authority. Though the club hasn’t yet opened, a former topless bar at the same site, The Bada Bing, kept cops busy from 2006 to 2009 with a string of shootings and stab- bings, including a murder, as well as arrests for prostitution, drug sales, drunk driving and serving alcohol to minors.
Community Board 2, which represents Hunts Point, led the charge among residents and elected officials to write letters to the SLA opposing Platinum Pleasures’ license renewal.
“It’s so disappointing,” said Rafael Salamanca Jr., CB 2’s district manager. “How can this three-person panel not understand the struggles we’ve had in this community?
“Here we are battling prostitution, here you are, in essence, promoting the type of environment we’re battling in Hunts Point,” Salamanca said.
The lounge’s owner, Felix Cuesta, said he had been unfairly blamed for past troubles.
“I wish they hadn’t said a lot of things about me,” Cuesta said. “They said I caused a lot of the problems. I had never been there. That’s something that happened years ago. I don’t think it’s fair. They’re not asking my side, and it’s not right.”
Cuesta said he hasn’t set an opening date because design work was delayed by the uncertainty over the liquor license. But he said plans to show that a gentleman’s club can maintain a gentlemanly atmosphere.
“I hope to show that’s what’s going to happen when I do have it open,” Cuesta said. “I do want to go back to the community board. I want to work with them. I don’t want vindication. I just want to open and make a living.”
For his part, Salamanca vows to lead a protest in the near future.