1985.11.22 - L.A. Weekly - L.A. Dee Da On The Streets [Mention of police raid at show]

It was no bed of roses for Debbie and Jennie of Lipstick Fix, who found themselves hauled off to the slammer when their show with Guns and Roses at The Galaxy was smashed up by our friendly Hollywood Vice last Thursday. Also locked away were several other scenesters, the beer (which was given away free) and the door money. Fortunately, the band’s equipment was spared at this haul. This pestering factor has made the Galaxy less than desirable to all the other club entrepreneurs, who have hastily moved their scenes to other venues. Those who’ll suffer most from this boycott will be the neighborhood car thieves, who’ve had a bonanza stripping cars while the owners were inside breaking the law by drinking beer.

Article in L.A. Weekly (March 28, 1986), not related to GN'R, but indicating that police raids at small underground clubs were common and for that reason the owners moved the clubs to different locations. That was probably the case with the Lipstick Fixx, too.




Transcript:
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THE LAPD VS. THE ROCK CLUBS

Forevermore, L.A. cops and some other city officials haven't liked certain kids. But Is there a crusade to persecute their music?

by Ron Curran

Will L.A.’s police and fire departments harass the alternative-club scene out of business? Many club operators think so. Some, like Solomon Mansoor, speak from firsthand experience. On February 1, more than 45 police officers wearing riot helmets and wielding billy clubs converged on Dirt Box, Mansoor’s clandestine downtown club. Under the direction of LAPD’s Central Area Vice Division, the police cited Mansoor for selling alcohol without a license, closed his club and confiscated the night’s take of $5,800 along with another $2,300 (in crisp bills, clearly not collected that night) that Mansoor’s wife had in her pocket for a vacation they were to take the next day.

The following Saturday, Mansoor — after arranging for what he thought were the necessary permits — moved Dirt Box to the Alexandria Hotel. LAPD officers soon arrived again in full force. Mansoor and his wife were immediately handcuffed. The charge this time? Operating without a dance permit, though Mansoor claims he had a verbal agreement with the hotel management to operate under the Alexandria’s valid permit.

Mansoor claims that as he and his wife were being whisked away to spend the night in jail (before posting bail of $1,000 each), vice-squad officer Chuck Litman warned them, “You say one more word and I’m going to throw you down the stairs. You can’t do anything anymore. You’re mine. I own you.”

Officer Litman called Mansoor’s allegation “untrue” but refused to comment further due to “pending litigation.” However, Sgt. John Fletcher of Central Vice was quick to claim the bust — and show of force — was justified. “We’d gotten complaints after some of the club’s juvenile patrons had gone home really wiped out and told their mommies and daddies they’d been drinking at Dirt Box,” said Fletcher. “We’d also been tipped by anonymous sources that drugs were being sold at the club. So we sent several units, knowing that a few plainclothes officers couldn’t have handled the crowd. We were basically concerned for the kids.”

But Mansoor questions the LAPD’s motives. “They’re out to harass us,” says Mansoor, who insists that no drug trafficking took place at Dirt Box and blames a vengeful security guard he had fired for filing the false tip. “The police think we’re all a bunch of punks and they just don’t like our scene. Also, it’s a lot safer for cops to bust some kids having a good time than risk their lives going after coke dealers and other real criminals. So they justify their jobs by cracking down on us.”

Whatever the motives, police and fire department actions against alternative clubs (both underground and legitimate) have been plentiful in recent months. One March weekend alone saw the closing by police of two clubs (Plastic Passion and Fresh Flesh) on dance- and alcohol-permit charges, while a third (the Anti-Club) had its occupancy limit drastically reduced by fire marshals because of improper paperwork. Just last weekend, the Palomino was raided by fire marshals, and the Zero by police.

Police and fire officials insist there is no orchestrated effort to harass L.A.’s alternative clubs. “If a club does not have proper permits, then we close it down,” says Central’s Sgt. Fletcher. “That’s the law.”

Adds fire department spokesman Capt. Al Angulo: “We have a list of all occupancies open at night and periodically we check each one at random. We only single out an establishment for a head count if we get a complaint or if the place is a chronic offender on probation. Maybe these clubs that complain of harassment are chronic offenders.”

Of course, some club operators have let their desire to make an extra buck get in the way of their altruism on occasion. What self-respecting club-crawler hasn’t felt at least a pang of claustrophobia when a club admits more people than it should? And it’s clear that some people who run underground clubs know that they're breaking the law, yet still choose to gamble that they’ll rake in big bucks before they get busted.

But club operators remain unconvinced that they are not victims of misplaced prosecution priorities. “It’s sheer harassment,” says Josh Wells, who was recently cited for running Plastic Passion without a dance permit. “It’s amazing how they keep coming up with new catches in the law every week to shut us down. They don’t like us, they resent our success, so they shut us down any way they can.” Brendan Mullen, who books the legitimate Club Lingerie, insists his club has come under particular attack from fire marshals. “There has been a spot check almost every single weekend without fail, even though not a single citation has been issued,” says Mullen, who notes that fire officials have imposed a 205-person occupancy limit though the club can comfortably hold twice that many. “That appears to me to be a concerted effort, way beyond the routine. The harassment is affecting the quality of entertainment it is possible to produce and is drastically affecting business to the point where it may not be possible to continue in the future.”

(A fire department spokeswoman claimed it was “against policy'” to reveal if Mullen’s Lingerie or any other club is on LAFD’s list of “chronic offenders” that require more frequent inspections.)

Whether police and fire officials are systematically harassing L.A.’s alternative clubs or merely doing their job by enforcing the law is a matter of personal judgment. Still, it seems clear that a problem of misplaced priorities and overzealous enforcement does exist. Perhaps a statement made by Central Vice’s Sgt. Fletcher hints at the cause of the problem — a preconceived negative attitude among police | and fire officials that all young people are inherently suspect.

“Wherever there is a young crowd you can expect drug abuse,” said Fletcher.

"Kids to go these clubs for the same reason they go to high-school dances — to drink beer and buy dope.”