Can Dennis Herrera Shut the Gates of Heaven? City Attorney Declares War on North Beach Strip Club.

Heaven is a place on earth. But maybe not for long

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed papers in San Francisco Superior Court asking for an injunction that would close down Heaven, the North Beach strip club that Herrera says has stayed open in defiance of city and state laws and despite repeated police citations for prostitution.

According to a press release from the city attorney's office, Heaven was also "implicated" in an April shooting. A witness told police investigators that an employee from the strip club may have shot two doormen at the Broadway Showgirls nightclub in "retaliation for a physical altercation a week earlier." (Both victims survived.)

In announcing his efforts to shutter Heaven today, Herrera, like us, couldn't resist a play on words. "Naming a business 'Heaven doesn't place it beyond earthly laws and regulations, but that appears to be exactly what the operators of this illicit enterprise think," Herrera said in a statement. Don't grimace. As far as press-release cleverness goes, this could be worse.

Heaven is the second strip club on which Herrera has drawn a bead in recent weeks. Last month, the city attorney declared that he would do "everything in my power" to close down Pink Diamonds, a Tenderloin club where a 30-year-old San Francisco man was shot to death on June 27. The city as a whole has been dealing with what some have described as an epidemic of nightclub violence, abetted by weak regulation of misbehaving clubs, as we reported in a recent cover story.

To view the full set of documents filed against Heaven by the city attorney's office, click here.

Photo   |   Bruce Turner