News Slant	News Slant Archive

At 4 a.m. on Saturday, September 1, about 30 New York law enforcement officials descended a dimly lit stairway into Mr. Black and shut the place down. The predominantly gay dance club operates in a brick-walled basement space that was once a length of subway tunnel. About 115 people were on the premises. By the end of the operation, 17 employees and 15 patrons were under arrest. The raid was orchestrated by members of the Manhattan South narcotics squad, some of whom had been working undercover.

E

View our poll archive

yewitnesses quoted by Tricia Romano in the September 11 Village Voice claim that those arrested were not read their rights or told why they were being taken into custody; that police referred to a transgendered employee as "it" and a gay man as a "fairy"; and that as the bust began, one participant announced to the crowd, "Sorry, homos, you're going to have to find somewhere else to hang out." The NYPD denies any inappropriate behavior on the part of its officers.

The arrestees included DJ Sammy Jo, the tour DJ of Scissor Sisters; Luke Nero, better known as "The Ass," the club's popular bottomless cocktail waiter; and go-go boy Chase Hostler, nicknamed "Mini-Ass." Since there was no evidence that any staff member was selling drugs, most were cited for "criminal nuisance" and released. One club employee, Anthony Giordimaina, whose pockets allegedly contained marijuana and four packets of cocaine, was charged with possession of a controlled substance. Two of the 15 customers arrested were charged with selling cocaine and crack; the others were charged with possession.

The raid on Mr. Black (the name pays homage to color-coded aliases used in the film Reservoir Dogs) was the third incursion into gay territory by NYC officialdom in ten days. On August 23, the Multi-Agency Response to City Hotspots (MARCH) swooped down The Box, a campy alternative dinner theater on Chrystie Street, randomly searched patrons for drugs, and ordered everyone off the premises. The agencies involved included NYPD, the Buildings Department, the Fire Department, the State Liquor Authority, and the Department of Health. The Box was allowed to reopen after the only code violation that could be made to stick -- an irregularity in food-service paperwork -- had been corrected.

The Cock, a "rock and sleaze fag bar" that Frommer's calls "the most envelope-pushing gay club" in New York, was targeted a week later. One of the few venues left that evokes the open sexuality of the '70s, the Lower East Side bar received citations for a few minor infractions including an unlicensed security guard and lack of a sign reminding employees to wash their hands after using the rest rooms.

At its original Avenue A location and again at its present space, 29 2nd Avenue, the Cock has received occasional visits from police and city officials seeking pretexts to curtail its operations. The bar has been the site of intermittent, sometimes blatant backroom action for over a decade.

During Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani's eight-year tenure as Mayor of New York City, the Cock and similar venues were subject to inspection by the Social Club Task Force, a multi-agency forerunner of MARCH. The task force was originally organized in 1988 by Mayor Ed Koch in response to a fatal fire at El Hoyo, a straight Latino club in the Bronx. When Giuliani moved into Gracie Mansion in 1994, the Social Club Task Force became a tool of the new mayor's "quality of life" initiatives aimed at stamping out porn, turning sections of Manhattan into satellites of Disney World, and mandating PG behavior in bars.

Under the present Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, the cultural cleansing program begun under Giuliani has continued. It intensified in 2004, when the Bloomberg administration's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene decided it was time to stamp out parties at gay bars where patrons were known to have sex. A number of regularly scheduled theme events, such as the Slide's Tigerbeat Underwear Party, were terminated due to alleged complaints by horrified customers that "sex acts" were unfolding on the premises. The Cock responded by suspending its own weekly parties, where sex acts were frequently part of the fun.

Renewed official interest in New York's gay clubs is hard to explain. Police raids on gay bars are, of course, old pre-election phenomena, but no major city, state, or national contest is to be put before New York City's 3.8 million voters on November 6. The recent police and inspectional actions may simply reflect the recurring authoritarian need to exercise authority.

Whatever forces are at work backstage at MARCH, devotees of Mr. Black insist that drugs were no more available there than at scores of dance clubs all over the city, including most straight nightclubs. As The Guide goes to press, however, Mr. Black's club space at Broadway and Bleecker remains closed. The question lingers as to whether drugs were the point of the raid, or simply an excuse to stage one.