SPRINGFIELD — The ShowBar, a downtown strip club, is faced with police allegations that it employed a 17-year-old girl as a dancer earlier this year.
The girl's job came to an end when her mother found out and paid a visit to the club, police said.
The Springfield License Commission has a pre-hearing conference scheduled Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall to receive a list of alleged violations against the ShowBar, including one count of posing/exhibiting a child in a state of nudity.
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According to a police report, officers were sent to the club at 240 Chestnut St. on Feb. 17 to assist a woman who claimed her 17-year-old daughter "is on scene stripping and refusing to leave with her."
Daniel Kelly, a lawyer representing the club, said the ownership will request a formal hearing before the License Commission at a future date to answer the allegations.
"We dispute the city's version of events," Kelly said. "We have a lot of witnesses to call on our side."
Kelly declined further comment.
The names of the girl, her mother and another relative who went to the ShowBar on that night were blacked out in police reports obtained by The Republican.
According to a police report, the manager of record, Caterina Amsden, admitted the girl was an employee but claimed that the girl used fake identification that belonged to a 24-year-old cousin.
Police Commissioner John Barbieri, in a report filed with the License Commission in March, said the police investigators found that the 17-year-old "stripper" did use the identification of the 24-year-old "but was receiving paychecks in her actual name, not the name of the cousin on the ID."
"The underage female also admitted to drug use and is currently in a rehabilitation program," Barbieri said in the March report.
In addition, Barbieri said police learned that a social worker from the state Department of Children and Families had talked to the girl, and that the girl said bartenders knew she was underage.
As of March, police said the alleged employment of the girl was being investigated by the police department, the state attorney general's office and DCF.
The ShowBar also faces one count each of: permitting a person under 18 to work in a place where intoxicating/alcoholic liquors are sold; delivering/selling alcohol to a person under 21; distribution of narcotics; no manager of record on scene; violation of security plan — failure to maintain a zero tolerance policy for under age 21 entrance; and violation of security plan — failure to use Chestnut Street entrance, according to the notice of pre-hearing conference.
The time period of the alleged "occurrence(s)" is listed as January 2016 to Feb. 17, 2016.
The ownership is listed as Buddy's Pub LLC, doing business as ShowBar. Buddy''s Pub LLC lists Ronald Eckman as resident agent and Michael Brisbois as manager/owner.
Comments
last commentYou would think that strip clubs would be more careful to make sure dancers are at least 18. This can get them shut down.
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I'd make a JS69 joke, but considering we are talking about a minor that's not cool!!!
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Wow, Traci Lords Repeat?
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This is exactly why some of us would rather not deal with dancers who are in that 'barely legal' demographic, the chance of the girl being actually underage is too close for comfort. Once you start playing with someone a generation or more under your age, it becomes a slippery slope- but that's just my viewpoint.
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Many strip-clubs seem to cut-corners but that is one they should be on top off and not cut.
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A number of years ago, in the underground Mexican Bar table dancing circuit, in Gilroy, it was on TV news that a 14yo was found dancing and a 13yo was getting ready to dance. And in those places the girls really get pawed.
What had happened was the talent agent was short on girls, and so at the last minute she was called with someone vouching for a new girl who wanted in. And then there was this second new girl.
So you see the problem, the talent agent has never met them or seen their id's. Also, not being at the club, she really did not have control over what went on. If she said no, that might not have meant that the new girls did not dance.
This of course meant big trouble for her. She was lucky to avoid jail. Other talent agents took over.
And the bar, and all of those in Gilroy, were eventually closed.
One has to be extremely careful, and LE uses that stuff to justify global crackdowns.
SJG
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