Verboten Shut Down: Williamsburg Nightclub Seized Over $360K in Unpaid Taxes

Photo by Matthias Mueller

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — A photo of a bright-orange, government-issued "SEIZED" sign, posted to the front of the embattled Verboten nightclub 54 North 11th St., made its way through the group texts of Williamsburg party people and industry men all day Wednesday and into the wee hours Thursday.

A spokesman with the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance confirmed by Thursday afternoon that the department had seized Verboten on March 30 for nonpayment of taxes.

"The business has three open warrants for unpaid sales tax," the spokesman told Patch. "The total current warranted balance is $360,378.05."

Verboten's cavernous property on North 11th is now in the possession of the State of New York.

State tax enforcers changed the building's locks when they seized the property Wednesday, the department's spokesman said.

"Seizing a business is always a last resort," he said. "We're in constant communication with the business owners prior to seizing the business, letting them know it's a possibility."

He added that Department of Taxation and Finance officials hope to continue a dialogue with Verboten management and help arrange the payment of their debts, "in hopes of finding a way for them to re-open the business."

When we stopped by Verboten late Wednesday, the orange "SEIZURE" sign had apparently been torn down. The property was completely deserted — despite a weekly show called Rite of Wednesdays planned for the night.

Turns out the show had to be moved last-minute to the Halycon record store inside Output, a competing nightclub around the corner from Verboten.

Sources on the Brooklyn nightlife circuit said rumors had been flying for months that Verboten's management wasn't paying its bills — not to mention its talent and club staff.

Two weeks ago, 16 former employees of Verboten, which opened in an old metal shop near the Williamsburg waterfront in 2014, filed a class-action lawsuit against the club's owners, husband and wife John Perez and Jen Schiffer, for allegedly creating a "sexually hostile work environment" and otherwise "committing a staggering number of unlawful acts against their employees."

The staffers claimed that Perez and Schiffer constantly withheld their pay — even sometimes stole their tips.

Schiffer was also accused in the lawsuit of getting mad at an employee who booked a party attended by black people. She had allegedly promised Community Board 1: "We are not having Black people parties!"

On top of all this, earlier this year, 14 of Verboten's investors reportedly accused the husband-wife management duo of "significant mismanagement and outright fraud" in a letter sent to other Verboten investors and employees.

Schiffer and Perez founded the Verboten brand more than a decade ago as a pop-up techno festival held in event spaces throughout NYC. Their opening of a permanent outpost near Williamsburg's booming Wythe Avenue in 2014, though, symbolized a club-kid renaissance/apocalypse for the neighborhood, depending which side of the YIMBY/NIMBY debate you were on.

News of the club's shutdown Wednesday should come as a win for Team NIMBY.