In response to a “complaint,” the Dallas Police Department raided the bathhouse Club-Dallas Oct. 8, arresting ten customers on charges of public lewdness and indecent exposure (which carry maximum sentences of 6-12 months and $2-4,000 in fines) and one staffer with interfering with police. Two officers paid admission to The Club — which includes staples like a sauna and jacuzzi, as well as pool tables and a fitness center — to “gathered evidence” before additional uniforms were brought in. Management of The Club helped bail out its arrested patrons, while the police says more crackdowns could be coming. It was the first time the police raided the venue since 2003, and only does so, DPD’s gay liaison Laura Martin insists, when there’s a valid complaint. At least one of those arrested is a closeted bisexual man. The bathhouse’s tagline: “Good. Clean. Fun.”
the crustybastard
Might I suggest prefacing such headlines a la Fark?
“Having solved all other crimes, ________________”
TJ
The boys in Dallas call the bathhouse “Granma’s”.
Henry
Let me guess, somebody got thrown out of the club and decided to retaliate. Nice.
Daniel
Aren’t bathhouses technically illegal? I’ve always thought they must be. In Dallas there has been some cracking down on massage parlors with “happy endings” as well, under the pretense of building code regulations. Does anyone know about the legality of these places?
Jeff
Welcome back to 1962 everyone!
You know no matter what you think about bathhouses this is becoming a disturbing trend. Look at it. Bathhouse raided, Gay Bars raided, people being asked id they are gay by employers, people being fired for being gay. HUGE spike in LGBT Violence and homoicide. ALOT of open air medis anti-gay talk and the rash of LGBT teen related suicides.
This is like a horrible step back in time and should be a wake up call that we need to get out there and stand up and fight back before they do take us back to 1962.
hf2hvit
Guess their undercover uniforms were quite convincing–must have been the HARD ONS!
John
I live in Dallas, and have been to Club Dallas, but I think the reason the police raided it is quite simpler. The Green Line has a new station for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), and it’s not more than a block away from this place. It’s typical of American cities to “clean up” an area of town from the “undesirables” (read non-white, non-Christian, non-hetero) when they have an expensive project in the area. There’s another spa about the same distance from the station in the opposite direction. I hope they don’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they got raided soon too. Can I just say, as a Texan? Fuck you Texas.
tallskin2
Sheeesh, this is like something from Thatcher’s Britain of the 80s.
declanto
@Jeff: And yet we’re being reassured by the New Yorker that this is all a false trend, and we’re really, really in a booming pro-gay period. Everything’s comin’ up Roses!
Except maybe in Texas.
Tom in Lazybrook
Good grief guys. The Sheriff in Dallas County is a Latina Lesbian.
Can anyone name a straight Sex Club in Texas? Not a private non-commercial club, but a commercial open to the public sex business.
I don’t like a lot Texas’ laws, but I don’t think they are being enforced unevenly. Sure, have an investigation into those that did the raid, but don’t be surprised if those officers weren’t motivated by bias, but a simple complaint.
Some of y’all have opined that this was somehow the result of someone ‘snitching’ because they were tossed. The Club wouldn’t have a problem even if raided if they and their patrons were obeying the law. Its not like that undercover and overt enforcement is really tight there. I for one, would love to see a lot more investigation of these types of establishments, as in my opinion, I see many of them as commercial businesses profiting from providing places for meth usage and unsafe sex.
For the time being, I’m not putting this in the same category of Rainbow Lodge Raid in Ft Worth (which was a case of redneck cops attacking Gay people)
Robert
And if the Republican win in Texas on NOV 2 it will only get worse
http://tcgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2010_RPT_PLATFORM.pdf
Gregnsf
@Tom. What “complaint” could there be? And why not raid a gay bar too? After
all, they might be drinking and propositioning other men for sex!! And they might drive home after drinking too! Lock those fags up!
I mean it’s shocking that there might be gay sex
bathhouse. Which is private property. And everyone who goes there knows what to expect.
No, Tom, you’re right. There is no homophobia at all here.
W
Don’t kid yourself, this place is a big time meth fueled sex house. It’s easy to find in there any amount you want to buy. They have all the Utencils available to smoke and inject it with. The guy outside mearly acts as a police buffer. The employees inside running the place are aware of all the tweakers and dealers. The dealers feel as though it’s safer to sale there cause of the safety net that the place secretly has in place. The only problem With DPD doing this raid was that they were not properly informed of how to go about their operation. Meth is the worlds most dangerous drug and it thrives at this place. Take the dope out of the equation and I would have no problem with this business.
J Stratford
if the problem was really meth, why did they arrest everyone?
GHB
What really happened is a disgruntled employee called the police and made a false report that a violent act was in progress and people needed help. Unknowing the report was false, the police responded and came in the establishment. One of the officers was a female. In their search for the perpetrator and victims they found people having sex in “public” the maze area. The officers felt they were only doing the right thing.
GHB
The police were unaware of the laws pertaining to private clubs. The Dallas District Attorney dropped all charges and refused to prosecute because what was going on wasn’t illegal.
The real issue is why the disgruntled employee made the false report. The Club, also known as Club Dallas or Granny’s (not Grandma’s) is managed horribly now that a new General Manager has taken over. The employees working the front counter treat customers like garbage. They are rude and hateful. Neither the new manager nor the hateful employees clearly have no concept that it’s the customers that pay their salaries and are the only reason they have a job.
The new General Manager has run off most all of the good employees and a significant amount of good customers. He has kept the majority of the hateful employees who continue to piss of old and new customers resulting in a substantial drop in revenue. They use a very “heavy handed” approach to interacting with customers. They are constantly screaming and yelling at customers that “it’s time to check out”. This makes the place extremely unpleasant.
What they don’t realize is that the customers go there to get away and enjoy themselves. The Manager and staff should be doing basic things to make make each person’s visit as pleasant as possible, such as being kind and courteous, making people feel welcome, and greatful for thier business. Not only would people be much more likely to return regularly, but they would tell their friends, etc. and business would be booming. But because they are so heavy handed, rude and making damn sure no one is over their 6 hour time limit, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
When people are enjoying themselves they loose track of time -a simple oversight. What Club Dallas has lost sight of is when a person has a good time they will return to spend more money. But treat them like a criminal right as they are leaving because they were having fun and lost track of time, they won’t forget and chances are they will come less often or not at all. And who wants to go to a bathhouse with no one there? No one.
Club Dallas offers its employees poor wages, zero benefits, continuously changing schedules and a poor working environment. The don’t even offer health insurance even though the law requires them too now. This is bad management at its greatest peak. So there’s no surprise that a disgruntled employee would do this.
While filing a false police report is wrong and the person shouldn’t have done it, it comes as no surprise.
Bottom line is Club Dallas brought this on themselves and haveno one to blame but themselves – not the police.
George H. Bottoms