Battle Renews To Shut Down Notorious Bed-Stuy Strip Club

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Photos of pole dancing women and a bizarre debate about the definition of "provocative" became the center of a liquor license hearing this week as Bed-Stuy's community board tried to stop a notorious bar in the neighborhood.

Community Board 3 voted unanimously Monday to not support a renewed liquor license at Amour Cabaret, which has become a hotspot for liquor authority violations, noise complaints and police write-ups — including a fatal shooting — since it opened on Nostrand Avenue two years ago.

Most of the debate between board members and the club's lawyer centered around Amour's insistence that it is not a strip club, despite photos of scantily-clad women and a description as a "bikini bar" on its Instagram.

"I’m looking at your Instagram account all I see is booties," board member T.J. Wilson said, before the chair asked members to "keep it PG-rated" "All I see are behinds and breasts...there’s nothing but half-naked women."

The type of establishment Amour presented itself as first became a sticking point a few months after it opened in 2018, according to the board.

Back then, when first applying for its liquor license, Amour said it planned to open an event venue for the neighborhood. It wasn't until later when the board found out it was "a completely different establishment" and neighbors began complaining about the bar, members said.

Amour's attorney Mark Weinstein maintained Monday that the bar is a nightclub that lets its patrons dance, but doesn't allow "employee dancing."

"We don’t have lap dances, we don’t have champagne rooms, we don’t have any of the services that a strip club provides," he said. "A provocatively-dressed person does not in itself constitute a strip club."

The board pressed Weinstein to further define the outfit requirements and titles for staff, including what he meant by "provocative." In the end, he landed on "sexy, trying to attract either the opposite sex, the same sex however, you want to define that."

Frustrated board members eventually pulled up a photo from inside the bar of a woman dancing next to a pole onto the virtual meeting screen.

"They're talking to us like we're stupid — they're insulting our intelligence," District Manager Henry Butler said. "We have the video tape from the meeting two years ago where they told us this was going to be a place for family events. Stop talking to us like we don't remember what you told us years ago."

Weinstein also denied that Amour had a role in increasing crime in the neighborhood, contending that there have been no "illegal incidents" inside the club, only outside.

"The community it is located in has a high crime rate, I don’t think you can attribute police activity to that particular location," he said. "...We cannot control the environment outside."

According to the local precinct, Amour — which has been closed for most of this year due to the coronavirus pandemic — has racked up 32 criminal summonses, six State Liquor Authority violations and 57 call to 311 since it opened.

Police reports include two shootings, a homicide, three assaults, a strangulation, a robbery and two incidents of harassment tied to the bar's address, according to the precinct's report.

The homicide — when a 26-year-old was shot while waiting in line — sparked a vigil at the nightclub earlier this year, with clergy and elected officials calling for Amour to shut down.

"From my experience being on this community board, which has been about eight to 10 years, I haven’t seen a police report like this before," Economic Development Committee Chair Tywan Anthony told the board.

The board's vote on Monday will send a letter of non-support to the State Liquor Authority, who will have the ultimate say in whether Amour's license is renewed.