On the evening of October 29, a squad of officers from the Shinjuku Police Station raided a men’s club in Shinjuku 1-chome and arrested its operator, one employee, and three customers — who had been caught cavorting bare-ass naked or nearly naked — on charges of obscene behavior in public or abetting such behavior.
Shinjuku 1-chome borders on 2-chome, home to Tokyo’s largest hangout for gays.
Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 1) reports that at the time of the police raid, some 25 patrons were on the premises.
The club, named “Destruction,” had been in business since 1997 and was well known in the trade as a place where gay men went to seek companionship.
“The club’s on the second floor of an office building,” a local news reporter tells the magazine. “There are about 20 private cubicles closed off by curtains and one large room. There are peepholes for looking into the cubicles. Most of the customers prance around completely naked or nearly so, and if you brush up against another customer, that’s likely to lead to some action.”
The charge of admission is 500 yen for minors and 1,500 yen for age 20 and over. Depending on the night of the week, the club would organize special events catering to “baldies,” “guys with short hair,” “guys with beards,” and so on.
As many as 90 males might attend in the course of one evening, according to a police source, and business was booming.
“The club was netting something like 4 million yen a month just from admission fees,” says the Shinjuku cop. “On top of that it peddled various goods for gays, magazines, legal drugs, and so on, so I suppose this brought in additional revenues.”
The club is situated in a quiet residential area, and nearby residents, apparently aggravated by the raucous animal-like screams being emitted — complained to police, which resulted in the raid and arrests. (K.S.)
Source: “Zekkyo mo genin datta gei kurabu tekihatsu,” Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 1, page 196)
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