Philly Crazy Horse Too liquor license questioned
Rick Rizzolo
Philadelphia
Mayor John Street
We
will wait to hear from the community group and the district Council
person, and we'll listen to their concerns very carefully. - Philadelphia mayoral spokesman
Joe Grace
By
the time we found out about it, they had the liquor license. - Robert
Blackburn, president of the Whitman Council Neighborhood Advisory
Committee.
Neighbors have
concerns about the type of establishment proposed for
this location, as well as the character of those in control of the
license. - PA State Sen. Vincent Fumo
INSIDE VEGAS by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
January 23, 2006
LAS VEGAS - Pennsylvania public officials are questioning the events
leading up to the sudden granting of a liquor license to the
Vegas-based embattled Crazy Horse Too strip club about to open in
Philadelphia.
Sources report that Rick Rizzolo, the listed owner of the clubs in
Vegas and Philly, is inviting Sin City high rollers and VIP's to join
him on a chartered jet bound for PHL later this week to help him
celebrate the grand opening of the lavish new "gentleman's club."
The only problem is that the celebration may be bitter sweet for
Rizzolo who's business is described as a "racketeering enterprise" in a
Department of Justice
news
release following the indictment of his Sin City club manager for
Extortion, Robbery, False Statements, and Tax Evasion.
Rizzolo is also expected to be indicted for these and other charges,
but it appears that the Philadelphia Board of Liquor License (BLC) had
not heard of his problems prior to their swift granting of his
privileged license, or they just looked the other way.
Catherine Lucey of the
Philadelphia
Daily News reported in her November 5 story, "
LOOK OUT, South Philly - Sin City
is moving in;" "But the board replied that there were no grounds to
re-examine the
licensee. There is no ongoing investigation into the license or the
club, a spokeswoman said."
It appears that the BLC shares the same nonchalant attitude as Las
Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- a Philadelphia native -- who said, "
My
position really is to believe in the presumption of innocence. So an
indictment to me is no different than making a ham sandwich."
However, concerned public officials in Philly didn't consider the
problem a "ham sandwich." Fumo's spokesman said the senator was
considering his options regarding the club. "He's hopeful that as more
information becomes available, the board may choose to reconsider."
A press conference was held in Philadelphia in November to bring
forward newly discovered concerns. Concerns that did not include
Rizzolo's criminal conviction for beating a club patron almost to death
with a baseball bat. The baseball bat beating had not yet been reported
prior to the press conference, though his close relationship with Joey
"The Clown" Lombardo indicted last April for 18 murders had been widely
reported in the Vegas and Chicago press, and should have been known on
the East Coast.
However, prior to November and the granting of the liquor license, the
Philadelphia Liquor Control Board obviously had no desire to do a
simple
Google
search on the name "Rick Rizzolo" where my
Rick Rizzolo Connection website
takes top billing and includes reports on the bat beating, Lombardo
connections, and much more that would have surely disqualified him for
licensure.
Now that takes Juice!
Speaking in opposition to Rizzolo's license at the press conference
were Robert Blackburn, president of the Whitman Council Neighborhood
Advisory Committee, state Rep. William Keller,
William McLaughlin of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, and
aides to state Sen. Fumo and City Council President Anna Verna.
Senator Fumo has written the Liquor Control Board asking it to
reinvestigate the club's liquor license, but the Board's only response
was that it planned to refer the case to the state police. This, after
conducting their license hearing in the dark without citizen input.
Its probably too late to revoke the license after Pennsylvania and
Nevada luminaries gather this week to give Rizzolo and his mob pals
high five's. The legal precedent will be set, and the Philly city
officials who so willingly granted the controversial license will be
defended at taxpayer's expense by their city attorney if action is
taken after the fact to shut the place down.
Meanwhile, LV gets another bad rap: "Crazy Horse Too is an import from
Las Vegas, and while this type of
establishment may be common in Las Vegas and even
welcomed in Sin City
- it is not welcomed in the Whitman section of South Philadelphia!"
wrote Fred Druding, Jr., Board
Member of the Whitman Council, December 22, in the
Daily News.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire..."
It looks like the fix is in in Philly, just as its been for years in
Vegas when it comes to Rizzolo, et. al. Now the Feds need to
investigate
who at Philadelphia City Hall was paid off to allow Sin City's worst
disease to silently infect the City of Brotherly Love.
While all this is going on, the
most fitting statement again comes
from Amy
Henry, wife of the man who in 2001 suffered a broken neck when
he disputed an $88 Crazy Horse bar tab:
"I can't understand what kind of city or state would allow a
place like this to remain in business."
When necks start
breaking in Philly, Las Vegas will end up taking the blame for
spreading its political corruption nationwide.
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BREAKING NEWS:
Crazy Horse bouncer reported dead
A reliable source
reports that long time Crazy Horse Too topless bar bouncer Maurice "Mo"
McKenna died on Friday, January 20. At press time, however, this
information has not been confirmed from official sources.
McKenna, 45, was expected to be a witness in the
upcoming OPERATION CRAZY HORSE racketeering trial.
The 300-pound, 6' 1" bouncer was named in an
Incident
Report but not taken into custody on May 30, 2002, for the
alleged beating of Scottsdale, Arizona tourist Michael Silverman. This
was not the first time McKenna was
accused
of beating Crazy Horse Too patrons.
McKenna was also identified as the bouncer who allegedly
assaulted Glendale, California tourist Chris Johnson on Monday, October
21, 2002. Johnson in a police report stated that a Crazy Horse bouncer
pushed him into the street where he fell twisting his ankle. Johnson
said the man who pushed him weighed over 300 pounds and matched
McKenna's description.
Since his election in 2003, current Clark County District Attorney
David Roger has
refused to prosecute any employee of the Crazy Horse Too.
On August 4, 1995, California trucker Scott David Fau was found
beaten to death next to railroad tracks behind the Crazy Horse
Too. A witness reported seeing Fau being severely beaten by Crazy
Horse employees in the parking lot after he was ejected from the bar.
According to the witness, one of the men who was reportedly observed
kicking Fau in the head was named "Mo."
In a taped statement, the witness described two men who he
said worked as bouncers at the club. "Yeah, they're the ones that beat
up this Hawaiian guy out there that was just - the poor guy wasn't even
moving, and they were kicking him, and um, at that point that's all.
They were just kicking him around, jumping on him, stomping on his arm.
They stomped his leg. Kicked him in the stomach. They kept - Mo was
kicking him in the head, and you just watched his head wiggle around."
Former District Attorney Stu Bell refused
to prosecute anyone in the Fau case, so on January 16,
2003, eight years after her husband's death and after three
dismissals of her case, Scott Fau's widow Camille sued the Crazy Horse
in Clark County District Court. When the purported eyewitness did not
show up to testify, Judge Nancy M.
Saitta refused to allow his taped testimony to be heard by the
jury. Subsequently, Fau lost her case.
According to sources, McKenna checked
himself into a local hospital on Wednesday January 18, complaining of a
blood clot in his leg. He had been taking blood thinners for some time
and reportedly forgot to take them for several days. Consequently he
doubled up on the dosage, and reportedly bled to death.
His body was reportedly shipped to New
York for burial on Wednesday of this week.
One
source told me, "Word around the Crazy Horse is that they are TICKLED
PINK he died as they WERE VERY WORRIED that he cut a deal with the Feds
and was going to spill the beans all over the place."
SM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUSPICIOUS
TIMING. On April 26, 2005, Mayor Oscar Goodman made a surprise
first-time visit to Steve's home. Coincidentally,
just one day earlier, Goodman's
former client, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, was
indicted in connection with 18
murders. Lombardo is a suspected hidden owner of the Crazy Horse Too.
In the
street, Steve scolded Goodman for protecting his former clients at the blood
soaked topless bar. Goodman's excuse for not taking
action against the bar's
license? "I can't take action in the middle of a
federal investigation." However,
one year earlier, on March 4, 2004, the city council
fined Crazy Horse competitor
Jack Galardi one-million dollars in the middle
of a federal investigation. Could
his stubborn refusal to stop the carnage be the result of
concern for his personal
safety, or fear of other retaliation from one or
more of his murderous former clients?
Or is Mayor Goodman just paying them back for
helping start his criminal defense
attorney career? Meanwhile, since his mysterious
visit, bar patrons continue to be
extorted, beaten, and robbed.
(AmericanMafia.com photo by Mike Christ)
