The Sweet Cherry, the waterfront strip club that for nearly a decade bedeviled the police, prosecutors, politicians and neighborhood groups who wanted it shuttered, has closed — permanently, officials say — as part of a broad and unusual plea agreement, lawyers involved in the deal said yesterday.
The agreement, reached in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn by the Police Department, the Brooklyn district attorney's office, the club, its owner and three managers, resolves a civil lawsuit and an array of criminal charges, according to a published report.
As part of the deal, the story continued, the owner and managers agreed to quit the cabaret business in Kings County and the managers pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug charges. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed all felony charges, including a rape case against one manager, Gabriel R. Bertonazzi. The managers agreed to pay $50,000 in fines, with no jail sentences or probation. Robert F. Messner, assistant commissioner for the Civil Enforcement Unit of the Police Department's Legal Bureau, said he was unaware of any precedent for settling a civil nuisance abatement lawsuit as part of a criminal plea deal.
"It was a very good example of cooperation by multiple agencies," Messner, whose unit handles more than 700 civil enforcement actions a year against chop shops, brothels, dealers of untaxed cigarettes and counterfeiters, told New York Times writer Michael Brick. But, he added, "it's not like winning a championship in baseball, where you go home and say congratulations. We go, 'That's nice,' and we go find the next place."
Lance Lazzaro, a Court Street lawyer whose prowess in civil and criminal court kept the club open for seven years through a series of raids, undercover investigations, arrests and lawsuits, said the club had been closed since Thursday and would not reopen. He declined to comment any further to the New York Times.
The New York Times reported that the Sweet Cherry was something of a commonplace in Sunset Park, where the community board has counted nearly two dozen sex-related businesses that have opened since the city adopted zoning regulations in the 1990's to reduce the industry citywide. The regulations effectively limited the sex trade to a few barren manufacturing zones, but the clubs in Sunset Park began to draw complaints when a waterfront revival brought new jobs and immigrant families to the area.
Without the zoning laws at their disposal, continued the report, law enforcement agencies have pursued civil and criminal cases against the Sweet Cherry since 1999. Before the new agreement, the club was shut down temporarily twice, reopening in 1999 after 41 days and earlier this year after less than a week.
Felix W. Ortiz, a conservative state assemblyman who has campaigned to close the club, said the deal was a victory for Sunset Park.
"This is just the beginning of taking back First, Second and Third Avenues," Mr. Ortiz told the New York Times.
Jeremy Laufer, the district manager for Community Board 7, said it could serve as a warning to two other strip clubs and about 20 other sex businesses in Sunset Park. But, he said, the zoning regulations allowing sex businesses in certain areas "might be the greater issue in this community."
