Nuns of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo in Chicago on Thursday added claims of prostitution and involvement in a fatal accident to a complaint against their backyard neighbor, Club Allure.
The Thomas More Society earlier claimed in a lawsuit that the strip club was in violation of a number of codes, such as setbacks from churches and schools.
But in a court filing, they expanded their claims.
"We have investigated and developed irrefutable proof that Club Allure has been engaging in the lucrative business of selling what constitutes prostitution under Illinois criminal law," said Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Society chief counsel at a news conference.
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"Not only has Club Allure thumbed its nose at Illinois law mandating a 1,000-foot buffer zone between adult uses and places of worship or schools, but now, in addition to causing severe disruption and harm to the sisters and nearby residents, Club Allure has pegged its entire business on its entertainers' providing prostitution services," he said.
The complaint states that during interactions with patrons or customers, Club Allure's dancers or entertainers engage in "direct and immediate physical, high friction full contact with customers' or patrons' bodies, and specifically the genital or other sexually sensitive areas thereof, for the purpose of causing sexual arousal or gratification of either or both participants (and/or the arousal or gratification of any other parties who may be participating in an advertised 'threesome')."
The complaint asks for a court determination "that such bodily full contact … as advertised and paid for, and for the purposes indicated above, constitutes the crime of 'prostitution.'"
That would make it subject to state law against "lewdness" and could classify it as a "public nuisance."
Further, Club Allure's ill effects "have included public violence, including an incident in which a screaming woman was beaten in the parking lot of the strip club at approximately 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and wanton public drunkenness."
Arrests also have been made for fights, mob action, battery, threats and resisting arrest, the filing contends.
Brejcha said witnesses are available to confirm that criminal activity is taking place at the strip club, which is just over the backyard fence from the sisters' convent and retirement home near Chicago.
The witnesses can discuss the prostitution as well as "a fatal crash late last month" that killed Club Allure's bartender, "a single mom who left two young children motherless, after which Club Allure owner/manager Sean O'Brien made violent threats on Facebook's restricted employee page to promote a cover-up of the club's own involvement in the death."
The filing also continues a series of liquor law complaints against the business.
WND questions about the complaint, which names the business and the Village of Stone Park for allowing the business, did not generate a response from the town government.
WND also could not obtain a comment from the business, which had a recording on its answering machine that it was open only from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The complaint also explains Illinois law demands a 100-foot buffer between a business that sells liquor and a retirement home.
It calls for court action to suppressor shut down the alleged activities.
The government is cited because officials allegedly decided to grant a variety of permissions to the strip club to resolve a lawsuit its owners had brought against the city, but then it failed to properly notify neighbors and follow the rules for rezoning property for adult entertainment.
Municipal officials also have threatened the nuns with arrest should they protest the club and "retaliated against the sisters by refusing to grant permission for the sisters to hold one of their Stations of the Cross in the public right of way (in anticipation of Holy Week on Palm Sunday before Easter on March 24, 2013) without giving any plausible reason," the complaint alleges.
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