Results tagged “nightclub”

Not to be outdone by that measly $1 billion class action lawsuit filed against Greenhouse—the "eco-friendly" but allegedly black-unfriendly downtown nightclub—some other offended blacks have stepped up with their own $1.5 billion lawsuit! Greenhouse: the "big tobacco" of nightclubs. This new lawsuit is being filed today by Raqiyah Mays, a Kiss FM radio host, and three others who say that they were not let in "due to their race." Isn't it about time for Latinos, Hasidim, and Sikhs to get their piece of the Greenhouse bonanza?

The author whose book release party at Varick Street nightclub Greenhouse was allegedly ruined by a racist door policy may file a lawsuit of her own. The "eco-friendly" club was recently hit with a $1 billion class action lawsuit, accusing the bouncer and owner of denying entry to approximately 100 people because of their ethnicity. Now author Teri Woods has come forward corroborate the allegations, and she says it wasn't just blacks who were kept out of her party.

Bronx cop Marc Rios, an 11-year-veteran currently under indictment for smashing a man in the face with his baton during a road-rage incident, has now been slapped with a federal civil rights suit. Victim John Roperto is seeking unspecified damages from Rios over the March altercation, which Roperto says was sparked after he left a Kingsbridge nightclub around 4:20 a.m and an NYPD squad car almost ran him over. Roperto, 32, slapped the car in anger, which prompted Rios to get out and crack him in the face with his flexible police baton, breaking both Roperto's cheekbone and the baton.

A woman leaving a Chelsea nightclub escaped a kidnapping that could have gotten a lot worse by jumping out of the moving car she had been pulled into as it sped away down Ninth Avenue. The 21-year-old who had been partying at Club Velour on 10th Avenue is not revealing her identity, but allowed her picture to be published in the Post.

There have been too many headlines penned about crimes against women in the city's clubs. Inside Edition has now gone undercover, placing hidden cameras inside what they dub the "trendiest clubs" here. Their investigation lasted a month, during which time they also surveyed women on their safety. They report back that "42% of women surveyed have felt threatened by men inside or outside a bar or nightclub." The show obtained the below footage taken from Marquee's surveillance camera about five months ago, showing a female's limp body being dragged out of the club by a man, who kidnapped and raped her.

Broadway is suffering, people! This summer attendance was down 9.3%, compared with the same period a year ago. Even with more expensive tickets, box office grosses were down 2.9%, to just under $290.9 million. So producer Ken Davenport isn't just being a drama queen when he tells Crain's, "We have far fewer butts in seats, and that concerns me. This summer wasn't good, and we're on target for a drop at the end of this season." Davenport produced four shows on Broadway last season but this fall he's only doing one—David Mamet's Oleanna, a two-hander starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles. Other producers are hoping celebs like Daniel Craig, Jude Law, and, ugh, Catherine Zeta-Jones can bring the butts back.

The fiesta's not forever at Kensington Mexican restaurant El Gavilan, which has been driving neighbors up the wall ever since owners expanded it into a nightclub earlier this summer. Now there's dancing, music and sometimes fisticuffs! Derek Mayer, a resident who lives across the street, tells the Daily News he's been awoken at 3 a.m. with "20 drunk people congregating outside in the street." And in May he saw a knife-wielding man trying to slash a bouncer armed with a baseball bat. After some pressure from Councilman Bill de Blasio, the NYPD raided the place at the end of July, citing the owner for selling alcohol after hours, unlicensed sale of alcohol, operating an unlicensed dance hall, employing an unlicensed security guard and serving alcohol to minors. But the owner's brother insists El Gavilan is "not a discoteca. The people come, they listen to music from the machine. There's no live music." Live or not, the music's too damn loud, counters Albermarle Neighborhood Association President Larry Jayson. And don't even get him started on all the horn honking!

The nighclub Marquee is back in the news after a Queens construction worker was indicted today for kidnapping a passed-out woman at the club, taking her home and raping her. In March, Luiz Zambrano, 39, allegedly found the inebriated 23-year-old passed out on a couch in the Chelsea hotspot where DA Robert Morgenthau says, "(He) approached the woman and began kissing her." He added that Zambrano then began dragging her and dropped the woman where she "fell headfirst into a wall and crumpled on the floor," but no one at Marquee assisted her. Zambrano put her in a cab that took them to his car and then drove to his College Point apartment, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her twice. During the second assault, the woman regained consciousness; the victim was able to lead the cops to Zambrano's house. The police also found that DNA left on the victim matched the "DNA found on another woman who said she'd been assaulted (at Marquee)." Zambrano, who was convicted of harassing a woman last year, pleaded not guilty and is out on $30,000 bail. Marquee was in the news last year when a woman disappeared after leaving there with a convicted sex offender.

A church becomes a nightclub, a nightclub becomes a store, NYC becomes Disney World, and so on. Remember that whole "the limelight is going to be a mall" and then "no, just kidding, it's going to be a film studio" thing? Well it's going to be a store now! The NY Post reports on the latest news surrounding the former famed nightclub, saying the "Jack Menashe, who owned nightclub Lounge in SoHo, is turning the long-vacant, 1849 Gothic Revival church into Limelight Marketplace with the help of designers James Mansour and Melisca Klisanin," whoever they are. Will the ghosts of drugged-up trannies and club kids haunt the soon-to-be shopping mecca?

Two nightclub bigshots have settled their lawsuit over their failed partnership opening a location of the legendary Laugh Factory inside Times Square's once X-rated Show World building. In the suit, Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada (pictured) had claimed that Show World head Richard Basciano was hiding millions from him, threatened him with a gun and told him that "somebody could be killed if a certain comic was booked again. Basciano, an associate of the Gambino and Bonnano crime families, told the News that he was regretful for the "misunderstandings." Masada said, "We are pleased we were able to reach an amicable settlement" and that he "wishes Mr. Basciano all the best in his future endeavors." There was no word still on which comic could have really ended up killing if they had come back to the Big Apple—any hopes as to who it might be?

While the eyes of the world were on the riots in Iran over the weekend, another shocking miscarriage of justice almost went unnoticed closer to home in East Hampton—but thankfully a reporter for Plum TV was on hand to bravely document Saturday night's panic at the shitshow. In the middle of a rainstorm, a crowd waiting for their cars and others clamoring to get inside were huddled under the awning outside Georgica, a "hotspot" run by promoter Matt Levine, whom you may recall from his work at Lower East Side tool magnet The Eldridge.

How has Chelsea hotspot Marquee thrived for over five years when the average lifespan of a nightclub is 18 months? A Harvard business class that got an inside look at the inner workings of the club says that much of Marquee's success comes from tightening their velvet rope. Anita Elverse used the sometimes infamous nightclub as a case study for her Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries MBA class. She said, "When you've invested a few million just launching a club, it's tempting to say, 'OK, we might not be around for a long time. We have to get high-paying customers in.' But that's the easiest way to ruin the brand of a club." The associate professor acknowledged that a 1,300 percent markup on a bottle of vodka doesn't hurt either. Elverse's class was split down the middle on whether Marquee should cash in the chips in the current economic climate—for all its success, it made just $2.4 million in profit in 2007.

Another weekend, another violent incident at a nightclub. Earlier this morning, four people were stabbed at Chelsea nightclub Promenade, on West 28th between 7th and 8th Avenues. The AP reports, "Police say four men were stabbed during a dispute that broke out at about 4:30 Sunday morning," and WABC 7 has a few more details: "Two patrons and four of the club's workers got into some sort of scuffle as the patrons exited the club...A fight broke out, and police say one patron stabbed four of the workers." The victims are in stable conditions while two suspects were arrested. Charges are pending.

Five people out partying in Tribeca last night ended up stabbing victims after a fight broke out outside a nightclub. Three men and two women were stabbed a little after 2 a.m. outside of the Deco Lounge on Brodway in Tribeca. 21 year-old Mario Almedo was arrested on assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges for two of the stabbings, one of a 23-year-old man in the head and one to the neck of a 21-year-old woman. A bouncer at Deco told the News, "It was just a fight. No big deal." All of the victims were taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and expected to survive. The club has a bad reputation with neighbors—one employee at a local bodega told the paper, "Every Friday and Saturday night, they fight."

Much like the tragic story that had just been seen on screen, an afterparty for the opening night of Notorious turned violent Friday when four men were stabbed inside a Brooklyn nightclub. A chaotic scene emerged as one clubgoer described it, "I didn't know what happened, but whenever people start screaming and running out of a club it means someone either has a gun or a knife, and I wasn't going to stick around to find out which it was."

As the search continues for missing Brooklyn woman Laura Garza, police say they have found a bleached section of carpet along Route 17 in Bloomingburg that appears to be the same one that was missing from Michael Mele’s apartment in nearby Wallkill. While police wait for it to be tested, a spokesman said, “It is anticipated that it will be significant.” The discovery came a few days after police questioned Mele’s girlfriend, who had allegedly helped him remove the carpet the day after Garza disappeared.

Police are looking for witnesses who may have seen the silver Infiniti SUV "any time after early Wednesday morning," because that's the vehicle a missing Brooklyn woman was last seen in. Laura Garza left the Manhattan nightclub Marquee early Wednesday morning with Michael Mele (pictured), a convicted sex offender, and hasn't been heard from since. State police investigated Mele's upstate apartment, finding a woman's shoe near a dumpster and a large piece of his home's carpet missing.

As the investigation continues for the missing body of Laura Garza, the 25-year-old last seen leaving the nightclub Marquee early Wednesday morning, the details that have come in are not very pretty. Police are still searching around the Wallkill home of Michael Mele, the Quizno's franchise owner and convicted sex offender Garza was last spotted leaving the club with. Yesterday they found a woman's shoe near Mele's apartment in the dumpster he was seen scouring through in recent days, a piece of cloth resembling women's undergarments in a nearby shrub and bite marks and scratches on Mele himself.

Police are investigating the disappearance of a 25-year-old Brooklyn woman who was out clubbing well into Wednesday morning and they suspect was murdered by a man she was seen leaving with. Laura Garza, who had just recently moved to Bay Ridge, spent the night dancing at Chelsea hot spot Marquee before taking off at 4 a.m. with the man she had been hanging around, 23 year-old registered sex offender Michael Mele. Mele turned himself into state police in yesterday in Newburgh, not far from his Wallkill apartment where they believe he may have committed a violent assault on Garza.

Stephon Marbury must be smiling to know that in one of his likely final days as a Knick, he gets the day off from being the bullseye of the New York media's lambasting. That's because the details that have spilled out surrounding Plaxico Burress's accidental shooting of himself are nothing but embarrassing and incriminating for the Giants star wide receiver. Once police can obtain a warrant from the DA's office, they are likely to arrest Burress on felony weapons charges since the only permit Burress had expired in May and that permit was from Florida thus making it invalid in New York and New Jersey.

          

Nightlife impresarios Cornelis Craane and Paul Coleman Drohan, whose pedigree extends to old school clubs like Palladium, The Roxy, and China Club, have just opened this new venue that hearkens back to the messier '80s era of NYC nightlife, before the hedge fund bros took over with their $1,000 bottles of Absolut. Located in the Flatiron District, the duo hopes The Imperial will "recreate a fantasy playground reminiscent of the Warhol-Basquiat club days where art takes center stage." So they brought in Ryan Rish, a former photo director for Bombin Magazine, to curate the fly space with work by a small army of guerrilla street artists.

A fight that broke out at last call of the night club Tahona in Astoria left as many as seven men stabbed. Two of those are still in critical condition at Elmhurst Hospital and police are still determining the total number stabbed as somewhere between five and seven. The fight broke out at 4 a.m. last night in the Queens club that opened just this year on Steinway Street. The AP describes it as "a flashy club with state-of-the-art sound, video and lighting, featuring live bands and a big dance floor" and the club's website says that it "the only place where the meaning of real 'fiesta' comes to life."

Two years after 18-year-old New Jersey resident Jennifer Moore was raped and killed after a drunken night at Guest House, the Post checks in on the Chelsea club scene and finds it as decadent as ever. Robberies and assaults are up, and last week "the club-lined block between 10th and 11th avenues was rampant with drunken teens and twenty-somethings stumbling around, vomiting and collapsing." Also, no I.D. = no problem! "At the very club where Moore was served, a young woman wasn't even carded at the door last week…‘For a while, it was harder,’ said Alan Rogers, 20 of Hoboken, NJ. ‘Last year, I saw a lot of smokin' girls turned away. This year, not as many. Which is sweet.’” High five?

Could the Roxy rise from the ashes of a troubled night club scene? Last year the famed club shut down to the disappointment of many, all echoing the "end of an era" sentiment. They originally opened as a roller skating rink and roller disco in the 70s, later transforming into a popular gay dance club. To make matters worse, the word on the street was that a developer would be turning the space, at 515 West 18th Street, into dreaded condos. Now amNewYork has gotten word that rumors of Roxy's untimely end were exaggerated, and "the owners will be appearing before the business license and permits committee of CB4" in an effort to re-open.

State senator Carl Kruger, an outspoken critic of Mayor Bloomberg’s plans for Coney Island, is now accusing the city of “extorting” $68,000 from the owner of Tatiana Restaurant and Nightclub, a popular Russian nightspot on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. Tatiana Varzar lost her restaurant in a massive fire in 2003 that authorities believe was caused by homeless people living under the boardwalk.

A 25-year-old man was stabbed to death inside the Flatiron club Duvet early Friday morning. Shamel McKinsey stumbled outside and collapsed outside on West 21st street, "blood gushing from his wounds, just after 3:30 a.m.," according to the Daily News. McKinsey, who had an arrest record for drug possession with intent to sell, was pronounced dead at St. Vincent's Hospital. Police suspect that McKinsey may have been partying with the rapper Fabolous at Duvet,...