The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether the Glass Slipper - half of what remains of the Combat Zone - could have done anything to prevent a stripper giving a customer a lap dance from, he told police, reaching into his pocket, getting his phone and Zelle-ing herself $320 - after he'd already paid downstairs for some extra attention in one of the club's upstairs VIP rooms. Read more.
Crime scene. Photo by Live Boston.
Live Boston reports that somebody fired seven to ten shot on Lagrange Street, in front of Boston's two remaining strip clubs, around 1:15 a.m. on Friday. One building was hit, but no injuries were reported.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court agreed today that the owners of the Glass Slipper, a Combat Zone holdover on Lagrange Street, made the club a bad place for Blacks to work, but dismissed a state finding that a Black bouncer was fired because of his race, because the man's formal complaint never explicitly said he was fired for that reason. Read more.
The Boston Licensing Board yesterday approved the sale of Centerfolds on Lagrange Street - now half of Boston's Combat Zone - to a Texas-based, publicly traded ecdysiast chain. Read more.
The city's last two strip clubs, next door to each other on Lagrange Street in Chinatown, have agreed to make changes in the way they disperse customers at closing time following a 911 call from a nearby resident about the "circus atmosphere" on the small street early one June morning. Read more.
Time was, the idea behind the Combat Zone was to concentrate all the adult entertainment in one small area to keep it out of the rest of the city. Then the BRA figured it could just demolish the entire area and all the theaters and shops would just, poof, disappear. But people fought them.
At the corner of Stuart Street and Tremont Street, in 2013 there was a Panera's Bread which could still be there today, 2016.
In the 1970s to the early 1980s, there was a barroom/strip joint which was part of the Combat Zone at Stuart and Tremont Street. It was a unique location in the Combat Zone as it was some 2 blocks away from the main area of what was called the Combat Zone. I am trying to recall the name of this the Combat Zone barroom.
Long time memory versus short time memory is funny as you get older. I can not recall all of what i did yesterday, but i have a video memory of what that Stuart/Tremont Street barroom in the 70s looked like inside like it was this morning i went in. There was also a barroom on the second floor but they did not advertise on the outside. But i can not recall the name of the business.
The woman, Sgt. Det. Robert Mulvey testified this morning, was "substantially unclothed," she was straddling the man's waist and she was in motion.
Now Christine Pulgini, acting director of licensing and consumer affairs for the city of Boston, has to decide whether the stripper at the Glass Slipper on Lagrange Street was merely engaged in exotic dancing, which is permitted under the First Amendment, or whether she was participating in the sort of "intimate physical contact" prohibited under Section F 1(c) of the Rules and Regulations of the Mayor's Licensing Division. Read more.
A stripper new to Boston got herself and Centerfolds on Lagrange Street in trouble when she gave a customer an intimate neck rub - just as Boston Police detectives were conducting a surprise inspection.
Det. William Gallagher told the Boston Licensing Board this morning he had just gotten to the club's third-floor Champagne Room - where customers can pay for more personalized attention - around 12:35 a.m. on May 19, when he saw a "substantially unclothed" employee blatantly violate city ordinances that require a minimum two-foot separation at all times between strip-club workers en deshabille and customers:
The Wall Street Journal has a nice overview of all the new residential projects attracting rich white people to the Washington Street corridor that starts this way:
New high-rise developments are transforming the neighborhood once called 'the Combat Zone'
The Glass Slipper, one of downtown Boston's two remaining strip clubs, has fired seven strippers since June, when workers found one of the women nearly unconscious from an apparent cocaine overdose in a club bathroom, one of its owners says.
Michael Bennett, co-owner of the Combat Zone remnant on Lagrange Street, told the Boston Licensing Board this morning that several strippers tried slipping drugs into the club even after he ordered doormen to check all employees' bags following the June 29 incident.
A stripper who reported two days early to her new job at the Glass Slipper on Lagrange Street never got a chance to strut her stuff. Instead, she wound up under arrest after a bruising battle with a waitress that left both with cuts and the club having to answer to the Boston Licensing Board.
At a hearing this morning, a club manager and a Boston police officer said the fight, on Oct. 27, stemmed from a dispute over locker space in the dancers' locker room.
One of the two men shot at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street a week ago remains hospitalized in critical condition - and needed emergency surgery yesterday - a Boston Police detective said today.
Sgt. Det. Michael Talbot, other police officers and the owner and some workers at the Glass Slipper testified today at a hearing by the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing on the Aug. 8 shooting, allegedly by Steven Gayle of Jamaica Plain.
UPDATE: Suspect identified as Steven Gayle, 35, of Jamaica Plain.
This morning, blood stains the sidewalk outside the Glass Slipper, a Combat Zone holdover on LaGrange Street, where two people were shot around closing time today.
The Boston Licensing Board today ordered the Glass Slipper to shut down for two days as penance for the horizontal lap dance a police detective found a dancer giving a customer early on Oct. 27.
The club, one of two strip clubs left in the Combat Zone, gets to pick when it wants to shut down.
A stripper caught by Boston Police detectives as she writhed on top of a patron at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street no longer works at the club, a manager told the Boston Licensing Board today.
And the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street agrees, telling the Boston Licensing Board this morning that it had no excuse for the way a stripper, clad only in a G string, was giving a customer a lap dance on May 9.
If you're interested in the history of Boston's old Combat Zone, check out this photo exhibit at the Howard Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave. The opening reception is tonight from 6 to 8 pm, and the exhibit will be up through March 16.
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