Rice Village Has Had a Whorehouse In It

Does this look like a whorehouse to you?

This one comes from the Village News (June 9, 2009) via the ever-vigilant Swamplot.

It seems a nondescript commercial building at the corner of Sunset and Morningside was, until recently, a whorehouse! "Johns" may be sad to see the Southampton brothel close, but the neighborhood is glad to see the nuisance gone.

The location of the Asian Massage Villa, 2401 Sunset [...] appeared vacant after a notice of eviction was served by the property owner.

Asian Massage Villa Was at 2401 Sunset, but its little door was around the side and towards the back on Morningside. There was no sign, just a lighted doorway and some stickers indicating donations to emergency responders.

In the past year there have been at least three arrests for prostitution listed in the HPD calls for service, and several other vice investigations at the address.

Last August, Village News reported on Asian Massage Villa having an arrest for prostitution, but in order to clase a shop you have to show a pattern.

Isn't this weird? With drug forfeiture laws, you don't even have to be proven guilty before the cops can seize your property. But with brothels, the police must show that there is actual repeated crimes there, not one-off episodes. And quite rightly so. It should be difficult for the cops to seize your property.

After HPD gathered evidence of a pattern of prostitution, city attorneys talked to the owner of the property about evicting the offending Asian Massage Villa, informing the owner that a lawsuit could be filed on the grounds of statutory nuisance. The property owner cooperated and issued a three day eviction notice.

Now isn't this interesting--instead of doing what they did with The Penthouse Club and All Stars Men's Club, where the now enforcible sexually oriented business (SOB) licensing law was invoked, the city just leaned on the owner. Why?

My theory is this. Once the city has established a pattern (with repeated busts for prostitution), in order to close a SOB, they have to file a lawsuit against it. The penalty is not only does the business close, but the location can't be used for anything for a year--regardless of who the owner is! (The SOB also has to pay the legal fees for the city.) But this is a long, expensive process for the city, with no guarantee of victory. So it made sense to probably threaten the owner of the property at 2701 Sunset with a SOB licensing lawsuit. The city attorneys probably said, "Look, we know you aren't running this whorehouse. You just made a bad decision about who to rent to. But if you don't evict those people, we will sue them--and when we win, you will not be able to rent that place for a year. So play along, pally."

So why didn't they just threaten Anargyros G. Mylonas, the owner (according to HCAD) of the Penthouse Club and All Star's Men's Club? Because the really want to punish him and more important, prevent him from opening another strip club somewhere else in Houston. The way this law is set up, by removing the possibility of commercial use for the property for a year, the owner is likely to be driven into bankruptcy (or at least have his capital tied up for a year). That way, you don't have the SOB popping up somewhere else under a new name.

So with the Asian Massage Villa, the city seems to have taken the easy, quick route to closing the business (with the risk that it will reopen somewhere else relatively quickly), whereas with the Penthouse Club and All Star's Men's Club, they took the difficult, lengthy lawsuit route, which probably puts Mylonas out of business (this business, at least) for good. I am only guessing about the city's strategy, but I suspect they figured using the maximum approach with two highly visible SOBs was more cost-efficient than using the same approach for the discreet neighborhood whorehouse.

Another Topless Joint Bites the Dust (Maybe)

As I mentioned in January, the city's strip clubs have lost their final appeal against the licensing law that is attempting to zone them out of existence. Pretty much all the city has to do is prove that they are a sexually oriented business (SOB) and that they operate close to a church, school, or residential neighborhood, and they will be closed down. According to the Chronicle,

There are a 25 to 30 topless clubs operating in Houston, but only a handful have licenses, said Zummo, who helped defend a federal court challenge of the city’s sexually oriented business ordinance in 2006.

Lawyers for the city filed a lawsuit Friday to close a Galleria-area topless club for not having a sexually oriented business license, the beginning of a City Hall crackdown on dozens of unlicensed clubs across Houston.

The lawsuit followed the arrest Thursday evening of nine employees of All Stars Men’s Club, 2688 Winrock, including six dancers charged with solicitation of prostitution.

This is really kind of clever. You can be a licensed SOB if you follow the strict zoning rules. Consequently, few actual strip clubs bother to get a license. So if cops working undercover prove that they actually are an SOB, they can be be sued out of existence.

This particular club is across the street from the shuttered Penthouse Club, and owned by the same guy. It looks like the city is trying to bankrupt him. I wonder who he crossed?

(Hat tip to Kuff.)

The Beginning of the End for Strip Clubs in Houston

Kuff has the story here: The Penthouse Club has officially been closed down by the City of Houston. The club had been closed under a temporary injunction, but the Chronicle reports that it is now permanently closed.

The city of Houston claimed a significant victory Wednesday in its effort to stamp out strip clubs and pornographic boutiques that have set up shop too close to neighborhoods.
A state district judge ruled in favor of the city's attempt to permanently shut down The Penthouse Club, 2618 Winrock, and ordered an owner of the establishment to pay $42,000 in legal fees. [...]
The case was a major test of a new front in Houston's long-running battle to enforce its "sexually-oriented business" ordinance, which has withstood multiple challenges that finally held up under the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The law, which requires such companies to operate at least 1,500 feet from schools, day care centers, parks and churches, has been flouted by strip clubs and porn shops since City Council adopted it in 1997.
But with The Penthouse Club, the city tried a new tack: suing to shutter the business under the city's nuisance laws. Now, the city intends to file a massive lawsuit this month using similar measures to close 30 to 40 of the businesses at once.
Police and city officials believe as many as 120 sexually-oriented businesses in Houston may be operating against the law, although about a dozen have obtained a legal permit.

The punishment meted out is especially harsh. Kuff quoted the Chronicle as saying "The location will be shut down as any kind of business for the next year, and as real estate, the location can never again be used as a sexually oriented business, no matter who the owner is, the ruling states." This line was removed from the Chronicle article when it was updated, though. Kuff points out that having a deserted building might be just as much a "nuisance" as a strip joint.
Now that particular location is kind of a mini-sin-central. Right across the street is All Stars, another strip joint, and in the strip center behind All Stars are two obvious whorehouse/massage parlor-type businesses. But with the city's success with the Penthouse Club, I think the strip joints and massage parlors along Westheimer and Richmond are probably doomed.

So what happens next? Houston has long been a sleazy city, but that could actually change. We're the city that actually spawned a publicly-traded adult entertainment corporation, Rick's Cabaret International (RICK on the NASDAQ). Rick's stock dropped sharply on Monday and Tuesday. The ruling was on Wednesday, but perhaps the sellers of the stock were expecting the worst. (It has recovered somewhat today, Friday.) Now Rick's has clubs in many locations (in eight states), and furthermore, of its five clubs in Houston, only two, the two Onyx-branded clubs, appear to be within the city limits! (The Onyx clubs are aimed at black men.) Indeed, the other three clubs are in unincorporated parts of Harris County. This wasn't always the case--Rick's flagship location was in the Galleria (maybe even where Onyx is currently located, although I don't know this for sure).
The fight between Houston and the strip joints has been going on for years. It has mainly been fought in court, but the clubs eventually lost. Now Rick's is a bit different from the other clubs. It operates nationally, in states where the laws are vastly different. And one thing Rick's knew is that no matter how permanent the status quo seems, it can be changed quickly. New York is the big example of this. You can still go to a strip joint in New York, and there is obviously plenty of prostitution there, as there is in every city, but compared to the way it was before Giuliani's clean-up, one can hardly be believed how different it is. The peep shows that surrounded the Port Authority are completely gone, and Times Square is an orgy of consumerism, not porn and hookers as in the old days.
So given this, and given the apparent seriousness of Bill White's administration to stamp out strip joints, I think Rick's hedged their bets and started moving the majority of its Houston operations outside the city limits. I would not be surprised if they owned or had options on other non-Houston but Houston-adjacent locations. Dudes will have to get used to driving to the edge of town for their bachelor parties.
Of course, the risk is that Harris County, on seeing the success Houston has had, will enact similar laws. Especially if it sees a sudden increase in sexually-oriented businesses in its unincorporated areas. But dudes will always be horny, and there will always be businesses there to cater to them, whether they are legal and above ground, or underground illegal businesses.