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Former Boynton Beach strip club becomes sanctuary

samsung1

Ohio

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. -- A new and holier chapter for a former Boynton Beach strip club starts in just weeks. It is turning into a church.
"It brought a lot of drugs and illegal activity," said Vivian Brooks, Boynton Beach CRA.
That's what investigators say the Boynton Beach strip club Platinum Showgirls offered patrons for years.
"There were rooms in the back, three or four rooms. There were beds and mattresses in there, chairs. It was pretty nasty."
All of it right in downtown Boynton Beach with a neighborhood just feet away, separated by trees and rusty barbed wire.
The party ended October 2009. Police and DEA agents raided Platinum Showgirls and made multiple prostitution and drugs arrests. The building sat empty for two years. Then a local pastor walked in.
"Now it's a house of God now."
In a few weeks the Evangelic Assembly of Christ Church will hold its first services in the building they bought for $600,000 and paid $200,000 to renovate.
"It was so ugly. It looked nasty inside," said Pastor Dumont Pierre, Evangelic Assembly of Christ Church.
Pastor Dumont Pierre showed CBS 12 around the building. The room where the girls used to get ready, is now the pastor's office. From the tile on the floors to the light fixtures, the entire building is being renovated.
The Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Association says recent investment in the downtown area is making a big impact.
"There were actually three strip clubs in our corridor and they are all gone now," said Vivian Brooks.
As church volunteers roll out the new carpet, surrounded by freshly painted white walls, they pray people appreciate the symbolism.
The pastor says if everything goes as planned they want to have the first services in the church in just a few weeks.


http://www.cbs12.com/articles/club-47387…