Attorneys for stripper shack Scores West argued yesterday that it should keep its liquor license because it got the all-clear from vice investigator Michael Oliver – the detective at the center of the Sean Bell police shooting.
At the State Liquor Authority hearing in Harlem, the jiggle joint’s jurist, George Weinbaum, said Oliver, who fired 31 of the 50 the shots in the Bell police shooting last November, was a regular patron throughout 2006.
“He told the management the club was clean,” Weinbaum said.
The West 27th Street mammary mecca is fighting to retain its libation license after a Jan. 25 undercover sting netted six women and two male managers on prostitution charges.
Since then, just one woman, Nicole Green, 24, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty to prostitution. Two more pole dancers copped to disorderly conduct and four others saw the charges dropped.
The two managers, who Weinbaum said were actually merely waiters, were accused of promoting prostitution and had their charges dropped.
The undercover cop, who wasn’t wearing a wire for the sting, said he was told he could take the strippers into a $500 private “champagne room” for sex.
The lawyer argued that the regular presence of Oliver, who was a vice investigator, at the club proved it was no house of harlotry.
Oliver, 35, is facing manslaughter and assault charges stemming from the Nov. 25, 2006 shooting outside Club Kalua, a topless bar in Jamaica, Queens, that killed Bell, 23. Oliver was part of a team engaged in an undercover prostitution investigation inside the club.
His lawyer did not return a call for comment.
The State Liquor Authority said that cops or no cops, Scores West should lose its license.
“We issued them a license and we expect them to follow our laws and the laws of local government and when they don’t we bring charges against them,” said spokesman Bill Crowley.