The Flesh Club's final chapter?

Below is a longer version of today's news story about how City Attorney James F. Penman and a band of cops rolled on the Flesh Club Thursday morning to enforce a court-ordered closure. The club will be closed for eight months after a judge found that lewd conduct and paid sex acts occurred there.

Penman has taken much heat over the years for burning time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in his quest to close the club, which he calls a house of prostitution.

Thursday night was Penman's time to shine, and he did, overseeing the (temporary?) death knell of the club while wearing a gray suit and a "San Bernardino City Refuse Department" ball cap (surely not a coincidental choice of garb).

Club owner Ryan Welty told this reporter, through a cell phone message relayed through a manager on site at midnight Thursday, that he had planned to close on time all along but wanted to coax Penman and police out to the club so "they'd all be on the clock," a fitting (final?) disrespect to the city attorney who has become his constant pursuer.

Enjoy ...

SAN BERNARDINO - At the stroke of midnight, the tubular purple lights
still glowed and the marquis still shone.
“We’re still open,” the marquis read.
But by then, the Flesh Club stage was deserted, and women who for
years have danced nude to patrons’ dollar-flipping delight were
fully-clothed and filing into the parking lot.
In the first minutes of Nov. 15, a caravan of cars containing about a
dozen police and City Attorney James F. Penman rolled into the adult
cabaret’s parking lot to enforce a court-ordered closure issued Oct.
30.
But the club‘s owners, who have struggled in a legal tangle of with
the city for more than a decade, had already opted to officially
close at 11:59 p.m., a timid concession after days of defiant
insistence that the court-ordered closure was one day later.
“We’re shutting it down,” said club manager Troy Neptune minutes
before midnight while standing in front of the club, watching for the
police’s imminent arrival.
A sequence of events precipitated Thursday’s midnight closure, which
San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez had ordered
to take effect 15 days after his Oct. 30 ruling due to ample evidence
that paid sex acts and lewd conduct had routinely occurred at the
club.
Alvarez granted the 15-day period at the request of Roger Jon
Diamond, the club's attorney, to seek postponement of the order
pending an appeal.
But on Tuesday a state appellate court in Riverside denied Diamond’s
request, clearing the way for enforcement of Alvarez’ order that the
club be shut for eight months and forced to pay a $25,000 fine.
But Diamond maintained this week that his client would remain open
for business until one minute to midnight Nov. 15. 24-hours later,
setting the stage for confrontation.
It didn’t happen.
Around 7 p.m. Wednesday, uniformed police officers, accompanied by
Penman, arrived at the club and made entry. As a few startled patrons
looked on, managers, dancers and other employees were served with
copies of Alvarez’ order that business must halt by midnight, Neptune
said.
“They served papers to everybody,“ Neptune said. “Some of the girls
were upset, they didn’t really know what was going on.“
With the paperwork served and the promise of return five hours later,
management got the word from club owner Ryan Welty to close shop,
Neptune said.
The midnight scene wasn’t completely uneventful. A 27-year-old club
dancer, set to leave in jeans and a blouse, was stopped and arrested
just outside the front door of the club. Penman said that during the
earlier visit to serve papers, police had gathered names from
employees and ran warrant checks, revealing that the woman had
warrants for theft and traffic violations.
Police filed in and out, ensuring that all operations had ceased in
the building. Penman, who has waged war on the adult business that
sits on Hospitality Lane, the city’s jewel of dining districts, stood
outside in a gray suit and a city refuse department cap. Asked if he
accompanied the midnight raid to see his decade long battle come to
fruition, Penman replied that police requested an attorney and that
he didn’t want to trouble his staff with the assignment.
But Penman did allow that he had a feeling of satisfaction.
“After 15 years, this is a good evening for us,” he said.
Before police arrived, young women, some of whom have worked at the
club for years, plaintively asked Neptune about the circumstances and
whether they’d be able to come to work the next day.
“Nope,” Neptune told one woman, who shivered nervously, scanning the
parking lot for police. “This is it.”