June 24, 2000.
Suffolk police and Town of Smithtown investigators conducting an undercover operation over the weekend at a Nesconset club purporting to be a juice bar found a swinging sex establishment filled with couples dancing and having sex.
A flier advertising “The Exchange” as the “first L.I. on premise sex club,” featuring private rooms, sex swings and brass poles for nude dancing, was mailed anonymously to the Town of Smithtown and Suffolk’s Fourth Precinct by an area resident who wrote that her 13- year-old daughter found it in the neighborhood and brought it home.
Acting on the information, Lt. Joseph Williams, commander of the precinct’s Crime Section, Officer Loraine Gonzalez, Andrew Brofman, a Senior Fire Marshal, and Catherine Archer, a town investigator, visited the club at 290 Smithtown Blvd. Saturday night and paid the admission of $65 per couple.
“This place was Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Williams, describing a non-alcoholic bar filled with about 140 patrons, ranging in age from their mid-20s to early 70s. Juice was readily available.
Couples danced or sipped drinks but others engaged in explicit sex acts in the main bar area in front of other patrons or in a room off to the side outfitted with padded benches and upholstered chairs.
“People just walk in there and they’re engaged in all kinds of sexual activity,” Williams said. “It’s not like they’re giving you any dirty looks to leave.”
The patrons, described by investigators as part of a primarily upscale crowd, were required to sign a disclaimer when they walked in, reading in part: “The Exchange has been established to provide a social gathering location for persons who believe in alternative lifestyles…If you do not share our values, you will not enjoy your experience here, and we suggest that you should not enter.”
While various officials expressed disgust, the only laws violated were fire and zoning ordinances. These were enough to allow town officials to shut the business down early Sunday morning, after uniformed police raided the place.
The club, housed in what used to be a regular bar with the moniker “the Safari Club” still emblazoned across the front, is in an area zoned neighborhood/commercial, which prohibits adult entertainment establishments. Zoning officials said, however, that it was doubtful this type of club would be permitted even under the category of adult entertainment.
“What was occurring there, this is really carrying adult entertainment to a different level,” said Director of Planning Frank DeRubeis. “I don’t have a classification for it.”
The manager of the club, Dawn Morrison, 29, of Blue Ridge Drive in Medford, was charged with assorted fire code violations, including two misdemeanor charges of blocked exits and a disconnected alarm system. She was released on $750 stationhouse bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in First District Court in Central Islip on Aug. 31.
Morrison did not return several calls requesting comment. Employees at a Deer Park adult video store called Teaser’s, whose phone number was listed in advertising for the club, also declined to comment. Documents filed with the town show a “290 Nesconset Inc.” with an address matching the one of the video store as the club owner.
The club, open only on Saturdays, was in its second weekend of operation, authorities believe. The owners told town officials when they filed papers to open the club that they planned a juice bar for recovering alcoholics, officials said.
Police took the names of at least seven people seen engaging in sex acts and also seized an address book containing scores of names, believed to be customers, but did not charge any of them.
“It doesn’t really fall into the violations of the penal law,” Williams said. “We can’t legislate morals or enforce their morality.”
Illustration
Caption: Newsday Photo by John H. Cornell Jr. – A sting operation by police and town officials discovered a sex club in this building, formerly a bar called The Safari Club. It was closed Sunday for alleged fire and zonong violations.
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