— I kept the license for you. That was huge. Now don’t mess it up.
— I gotta keep my girls dancing, you hear?
— The only thing that’s gonna keep this place open is the grandfather.
— The what?
Lazzaro more than likely commenced to educate his client about the tide that turned sleaze to please in Manhattan’s Times Square. Walk West 42nd Street from Seventh to Eighth Avenue in 1993 and you were greeted by XXX this and All Nude that. After the ’94 mayoral election, Disney’s mouse moved in and pretty soon the strip clubs, private viewing booths, and lap dances moved out — with many thanks going to the new Brooklyn-born mayor, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, crusader for the quality of life he said New Yorkers wanted.
So, big showcase theaters for glittery productions such as The Lion King transformed old Times Square into the new Square Times. Out went the shops selling sex, in came Starbucks and lattes. Even the little old guy with a neatly creased paper hat who sold hot dogs and burgers under the marquee of a dilapidated movie palace got the boot.
But what about the local sex-flick joints that were already operating before the new zoning law went into effect? With their business permits protected by grandfather clauses, they could still peddle triple-X videos and DVDs so long as they also offered some movies you wouldn’t mind taking home to the tykes. So, while a couple of wholesome titles were displayed in the windows, few copies were actually in stock. No such problem, however, with the likes of Debbie Does Dallas. Which could still be viewed in back if so desired, courtesy of a private booth. Just watch where you sit.
Likewise in outer-borough locales like Sunset Park, sex joints, so to speak, had grandfather clauses. They might be on Mayor Giuliani’s radar, but they were still open and doing brisk business.
Sweet Cherry opened in 1996. Joe and Jimmy DeNicola bought the property from a Manhattan Beach businessman named Louis Kapelow.
It’s been said that drugs killed the Mafia. The original bent-noses despised drugs. Colombo, Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese — none of them wanted their soldiers trading in dope. It was bad for business.
We all know what happened. As history tends to repeat itself, bad business came to Sweet Cherry.
Jorge tells me about a spring night in 1999, when Sweet Cherry was home to dancers with names like Chastity (really) and Jennifer (ditto).
“I liked it, you didn’t have to wear nothing fancy. No jackets,” explains Jorge. “I don’t own a jacket... My brother Manuel, he comes in with me. In like two minutes or something, Manuel’s off to the back room with a lap dancer. He comes out smiling about ten minutes later. Then this other guy comes in and walks up to the bar. He’s a gringo. He goes to the back with another gringo. Leaves about five minutes later. That’s when things started going wrong around here.”
Later, I check out what Jorge was telling me. As the press reported at the time, the story goes something like this:
A stranger walks up to the bar, a small baggie of cocaine is “exchanged with a patron” for twenty bucks. The stranger records the sale, and does so again on a number of successive nights. The stranger works for the NYPD Narcotics Division out of the Brooklyn South precinct.
Counselor Lazzaro gives his client a warning along the lines of, They’re going after the club, Jimmy.
Jimmy’s likely response? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
It meant the cops never named an actual person or persons dealing drugs. They only named the place — Sweet Cherry. Narcs demonstrated a “pattern of activity,” as prescribed by statute. In this case, the activity at Sweet Cherry was drug dealing. Establish that in a court of law, and the judge will say drugs, booze, naked women — they don’t mix, so shut it down.
Jimmy might have wanted a personal meeting with this stranger from Brooklyn South. In which case Lazzaro might have told Jimmy that hostility would be bad for business.
Lazzaro’s final advice? Probably: Keep your mouth shut, don’t do anything stupid, and we’ll keep you open.
An investigation proceeded, based on the narc’s account and his catalogue of illicit drug sales. The district attorney of Kings County brought the matter to state court.
The argument Lazzaro and his cocounsels put up was simple: People in the club have their backs to the bar because they’re watching the stage — and who wouldn’t be when Chastity and Jennifer were performing? Consequently, house management was unaware of drug transactions since customers’ hands were not observable.
On August 5, 1999, the judge ordered the temporary closure of Sweet Cherry and imposed a fine of $25,000. Big deal.
No doubt Jimmy DeNicola proclaimed his lawyer a genius. No doubt the genius told Jimmy to cool it.
Clients, a lawyer once told me, are the same as a doctor’s patients: They don’t listen to sound advice.
Staring at the gated front door, Jorge leans back, then forward, as if looking for something. He tells me, “It was like the judge took my hangout away. Then I seen this big dude out front one day. It was real hot. He was cleaning the front of the store. He says, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be back.’”
That was August. Late in September, Sweet Cherry reopened.
On December 8, 1999, nine-year veteran NYPD Detective Joe Continanzi double-parked his car on Second Avenue. It was well after midnight, moving toward dawn. The air that night was unusually mild for a New York awaiting Christmas. Later in the day, New Yorkers would gather in Central Park to celebrate the nineteenth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. Continanzi’s girlfriend, Michele Miranda, was in the passenger seat next to him.
I like to think that if they were listening to the radio, Lennon’s “Instant Karma” was playing.
Michele slid out of the car to do what she came to do, which was to walk into Sweet Cherry and come back out with her friend, a dancer at the club. But when Michele returned alone, a group of loiterers in front of the club grabbed at her. Joe jumped out of the car. He didn’t get very far.
At the hospital, Joe told his sergeant, They jumped me. The doctor told him to lie still.
Lucky, the doctor said. The stab wounds missed Joe’s major organs. The doctor left and Joe finished telling his sergeant how he had been kicked, hit with bottles left and right, punched, and stabbed. The sergeant told Joe they nailed two of the droolers, and both had confessed.
Jorge was there that night.
“You spent a lot of time here, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah, I know, some people think me and my wife, we’re not good,” says Jorge. “But it’s okay. She knows I don’t do anything bad. I come home to her... But that night even I get scared. That was some fuckin’ fight. Bitches slapping bitches, bottles breaking everywhere. I got out in a hurry. See, I was alone that night. Manuel was at work. That cop took a beating.”
Officer Continanzi’s lawsuit against the club failed. Lazzaro’s argument this time, that the bouncer’s responsibility ended at the door, prevailed. What happened outside the club, on the street, was not the club’s responsibility.
Sweet Cherry, still alive.
March 8, 2004. A cold rainy afternoon. A sixteen-year-old girl walks into the club. She lies about her age to the manager, Gabriel Bertonazzi. She needs work, she says, and she can dance, she says. She can dance real nice.
At this, a grin may have found its way to Bertonazzi’s double-chinned face. Dance, he might have said. Dance for me. He lets her know that he is the sole judge of talent for the club.