Chinatown objects to corset entertainment
July 3, 2007 
While David Bowie and Sting have plans to open a New York branch of Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce burlesque club, residents in Chinatown have expressed concern that dancers may not be keeping themselves in their corsets.
Some of the neighbours of 164 Elizabeth Street, which will be converted into the new burlesque club, are worried that girls will be flinging their corsets off in what would amount to a strip show.
Around 1,200 people in Chinatown and Little Italy have submitted a petition to the State Liquor Authority (SLA), appealing for an alcohol licence application from the club to be denied.
"It's evident from the approximately 1,200 signatures collected in only four days that we all agree that we do not want a striptease mega-nightclub in our neighbourhood," Janet Freeman, a resident of 167 Elizabeth St., told the Downtown Express.
Ms Freeman added that the Forty Deuce notice that was submitted to Community Board in April described the venue as a "lounge bar" which would cover only 3,000 square feet space while the application to the SLA described the proposed club as larger in scale and entertainment.
"They failed to disclose the true nature of the business to the community board but they publicly announced its New York opening on its website and promoted it in numerous press releases," Ms Freeman said. "Guys in the neighborhood are asking each other when the [topless] bar is coming."
However, Warren Pesetsky, lawyer for Ivan Kane, said that girls are covered up in corsets and other burlesque garb and not much nudity features.
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