Underground smokehouses open amid crackdown on smoking, strip clubs in TREMONT, Ohio City and other neighborhoods

Ohio's crackdown on strip joints and barroom smoking has spawned as many

> as two dozen underground nightclubs that operate in houses across

> Cleveland.

> Known as smokehouses, the after-hours hangouts offer what legal clubs

> and bars cannot - places for patrons to smoke while they drink, watch

> strippers after midnight and have sex with prostitutes, according to

> city vice detectives.

>

> So far, the smokehouse owners have been cagey enough to avoid being

> busted.

>

> "These guys aren't stupid," said attorney Skip Lazzaro, who represents

> legal nightclubs in court. "They know that if they want to stay open,

> they have to fly below the radar, avoid complaints and the attention of

> neighbors."

>

> To stir up business and avoid detection, the smokehouse proprietors

> rotate the dancers from house to house and open on alternating nights so

> they don't compete with each other, Lazzaro said.

>

> Lazzaro and vice cops say they started hearing about smokehouses in

> Tremont, Ohio City and other residential neighborhoods last year after

> the state began enforcing a ban on smoking in public places and

> legislators outlawed nude entertainment after midnight.

>

> Detective Tom Shoulders, a 2nd District vice sergeant, compares the

> smokehouses of 2008 to the gin houses of Prohibition in the Roaring

> '20s.

>

> "You put too many restrictions on people, they're going to find

> someplace else to go for their entertainment," he said.

>

> Informants tell police that smokehouse patrons, primarily white suburban

> men, bring their own liquor, cigarettes and cigars.

>

> Doormen collect up to $25, purportedly for a buffet, and may require a

> reference for entry. Some clubs also provide jars filled with condoms.

>

> "They have succeeded in creating this underground, sleazy, cash- only

> business that cannot be regulated, taxed or secured by police," Lazzaro

> said.

>

> Shoulders and his twin brother, Terry, head of the 3rd District's vice

> unit, say they have yet to gather enough evidence to raid the clubs.

> That's because the neighbors aren't complaining, and undercover officers

> have been unable to get inside one.

>

> They have asked landlords to monitor activities in their rental homes

> and urged residents to keep their eyes open for any unusual activity.

>

> Detective Joe Bovenzi, a member of Tom Shoulders' 2nd District team, has

> helped close illegal bottle, drug and sex clubs during his 10 years as a

> vice cop. He recalled a case about two years ago when he helped to bust

> a home in Tremont where the owner had erected a brass stripper pole in

> the living room.

>

> Bovenzi predicted the smokehouses would eventually meet the same fate.

>

> "Someone will be treated wrongly and drop a dime," he said. "Or there

> will be fights or shootings, and we'll move in."

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