Real ‘yucks’ at Comic Strip Live
There’s nothing funny about the sorry state of the famed Comic Strip Live comedy club, which is being “driven into the ground” by owners who drink “copious amounts of alcohol” for free, a new suit charges.
The Upper East Side institution that helped launch the careers of comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler is so badly neglected by co-owner Richie Tienken and his wife that “dead rats and mice” are left lying around the club for weeks, according to the suit filed by Tess Wachs, a coowner.
She charges in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that Tienken, his wife Jean and manager Thomas Latsch are using the joint’s corporate account “as their own personal piggybank.”
Jean and Tienken regularly get drunk in front of customers and bark orders at staff who have nicknamed them “the devils,” the suit says.
Tess Wachs’ husband, Bob, co-founded the club in 1975 and died of cancer in 2013.
Bob Wachs was credited with helping make Murphy a star. He and Tienken once worked as Murphy’s managers.
Tess Wachs says in her suit she’s been frozen out of the club by Tienken, his wife and Latch, despite their apparent lack of interest in its sorry state.
Tienken told the Daily News the allegations were unfounded and the result of a longstanding beef.
He, his wife and Latch aren’t drinkers, he said.
“The fact that she said it’s rat-infested — I have an A from the Health Department!” Tienken said.
Wachs seeks damages to be determined at trial, along with the appointment of a temporary receiver to control the struggling business.