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JOIN LBPD: WATCH LIVE SEX, ISSUE WARRANTS!

Theo DouglasWed. July 16
 

Cops say Basement Lounge owners hosted sex party, brought funk but failed to bring an entertainment permit

Next Thursday is likely to be a tough day for Michael Alain Vidal and Mark Akhavain, owners of Basement Lounge in the historic Broadlind Hotel in the East Village Arts District. Will they get to explain the birds and the bees to the city of Long Beach? Or will they go directly to jail?

The two men are due at City Hall at 9 a.m., July 24, to tell a hearing officer why their club should get to keep its doors open, after hosting what may have been a swingers party March 15. The city may suspend or revoke the club’s business license and entertainment permit, which could spell curtains for the Basement—and not those sexy velvet curtains.

Trouble is, Vidal and Akhavain each received a misdemeanor citation the night of the party for not having an adult entertainment permit. Long Beach police found patrons engaging in “cunilingus” [sic] and “oral copulation” inside as Vidal watched, making “no attempt to stop” them, according to a July 1 city staff report to the Long Beach City Council.

According to an official in the city prosecutor’s office, neither Vidal nor Akhavain appeared at their arraignments last month in Long Beach Superior Court, so the judge issued warrants for their arrest.

Quel dilemma, no? Their failure to appear in council chambers might reflect poorly on their club, which neighbors say has been a good citizen after the owners addressed noise complaints last year. But if they do show up, they’ll be arrested, right?

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that question,” said Long Beach Police Department Public Information Officer Nancy Pratt. “If we came into contact with them or we were aware, that’s always a possibility.” Police are probably aware now.

But what’s this about a bacchanal?

Long Beach Police vice detectives visited the Basement March 15, merely “for a compliance inspection regarding past complaints,” when they observed the following—for more than an hour:

“There was a woman disc jockey wearing only pasties covering her areolas, lace panties and furry knee high boots,” the Department of Financial Management’s July 1 report to Long Beach City Council reads.

Wearing furry knee-high boots is a fashion crime, of course, but that didn’t seem to bother police. “There were women pole dancing on the stage exposing their naked breasts. Some women were sucking the naked breasts of other women,” the report continues. “Some women were performing cunilingus [sic] on other women. There was also a woman performing an act of oral copulation on a man inside the restroom.”

A Long Beach police detective “observed Michael Vidal, one of the club owners, standing on the dance floor, watching the sexual activity. He made no attempt to stop the unpermitted activity.” Police, however, did notice, and they wrote Vidal and Akhavain tickets around midnight, and closed the Basement for the rest of the evening.

A source interviewed by The District Weekly in the days after the event characterized it as a swingers party. Vidal declined to comment, citing the advice of his lawyer. Santa Ana attorney Rick Blake, who, according to the city, represents both men, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Neighbors said closing the nightclub would cost the East Village a business it can ill afford to lose.

“It’s part of the city,” said Jean-Louis de Bien, president of the Lafayette Association of Homeowners, whose unit in the historic Lafayette building is across Linden Avenue from the Basement. “There’s the whole mythology of the happening urban core, and you can’t have the happening urban core without things to draw people to the happening urban core. Like this nightclub.”

“They had very good intentions to be an upscale, 30- to 40-something patron, jazz dinner club, and it’s unfortunate that they weren’t able to stick to the original plan,” Second District Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal said, recalling the nightspot’s original vision. “But this incident was pretty significant. That’s a big violation.”

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