Coming to Mill River?
Mill River residents are weighing how to thwart a “Vegas”-style strip club — without demeaning the sex workers whom the club would employ.
In anticipation of Peter Forchetti’s latest attempt to start a new strip club on Wallace Street called “Planet Venus,” the neighborhood’s alder, Ellen Cupo, convened residents for a community discussion about the project over Zoom on Thursday night.
Everyone in attendance vowed to fight the club proposal. They pondered how to frame their arguments against the planned venue, and which arguments to deem worthwhile and respectful.
Forchetti has proposed establishing Planet Venus at 203 Wallace St., an industrial warehouse building. He is the former owner of Scores, another strip club in the former Clock Factory at 133 Hamilton St. that closed down in 2019.
Forchetti first attempted to start Planet Venus — a strip club he promised would be “Las Vegas-style” — in 2019. That year, the Board of Zoning Appeals approved his variance request — but after a New Havener named Julio Carmona appealed the ruling, Superior Court Judge Michael Kamp struck down the approval in 2021.
Now Forchetti is trying again. He is set to appear before the Board of Zoning Appeals on Feb. 8. As the New Haven Register first reported, he is requesting special exceptions for running an “adult cabaret” at the Wallace Street location, for parking relief, and for operating within 1,500 feet of another strip club (the Catwalk at 325 East St.).
Neighbors speaking out, clockwise from top left: Alex Werrell, Karolina Ksiazek, Ellen Cupo, Joan Cavanagh.
Neighbors are mobilizing against the new special exception requests.
Police Lt. Michael Fumiatti, the area’s district manager, asserted that the strip club would attract violent activity. He attested that while other clubs are “effective in their security measures,” Forchetti’s old Scores nightclub frequently created public safety disturbances. “I think it will drastically deplete our resources,” he said as a cop supervisor
One problem with Scores and another problematic nightclub, the Key Club, Fumiatti said, was that customers could stay until the early hours in the morning with a bring-your-own-beverage policy.
Neighbor Alex Werrell also questioned Forchetti’s historical business practices, noting that the business owner didn’t seem to be “interested in engaging the neighborhood in meaningful ways.”
“When he describes it as ‘Las Vegas-style,’ it makes one think that he has never been to our neighborhood,” Werrell added. “Read the room, man.”
Jocelyn Square resident Joan Cavanagh pointed out that many children live nearby in the neighborhood. She noted that a group of committed neighbors worked in the 1990s and 2000s to improve Jocelyn Square Park area and make it more family-friendly.
If the strip club proposal were to succeed in an area with many children, she asked, “what kind of message does it send about how we treat women, about how we let people behave?”
Tom Breen Photo
SWAN's Karolina Ksiazek.
Karolina Ksiazek, a member of SWAN (the Sex Workers and Allies Network), said they believe many of the neighbors’ concerns about the Planet Venus proposal are valid. But they cautioned against “very moralistic reasons” against the venue.
“I am requesting that folks not use those arguments about ‘what are we teaching our kids about treatment of women,’” they said. They said that strip clubs are sometimes environments where women feel agency and respect for their work.
Werrell agreed. “I feel a little uncomfortable in making blanket statements about the types of people who might work there and might go there,” he said. He wondered aloud whether the neighborhood could “find an argument that is not based on moral grounds, or on what our neighborhood looks like and who comes to our neighborhood, but about the law about liquor permits or BYOB.”
Cavanaugh clarified that she doesn’t want to stigmatize sex workers. “I do think you have to recognize that [the business] is gonna bring in a lot of people who are not respectful of women. That is a fact, and that is not a message that I am comfortable with having put out in our community,” she said.
Her main concern, she added, is “what’s going to go on on a day-to-day basis — in terms of clients spilling out into the streets, people who are drinking, who do not respect the neighborhood.”
Fumiatti added that he worked in security at the nearby strip club Catwalk for two years. “I have no issue with this type of work,” he said, and praised Catwalk for its safety rules. Fumiatti said he simply doesn’t have faith that Forchetti will implement that same safety-oriented approach.
Over the course of the conversation, East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Charles Decker, whose ward is adjacent to the proposed club, referred to his past experience as a Board of Zoning Appeals commissioner. He stressed to the group that there are certain situations under which an “adult cabaret” is permitted with a special exception — so BZA members are unlikely to be persuaded by arguments that take issue with strip clubs themselves. Rather, he urged activists to focus on why this particular strip club proposal in this particular building does not merit a special exemption — like the history of criminal activity at Scores.
In the Zoom meeting’s chat, Werrell asked whether anyone has heard of arguments in favor of a strip club at the Wallace Street location. “I have not spoken with anyone in favor of it; I would be curious to know if others have,” he said.
After no one else replied, Cupo responded that in her outreach so far, she hasn’t heard from anyone in favor of the club.
She urged neighbors to attend the BZA meeting and speak out.
Going to Alder Decker’s comment, I think it would be useful if City Plan’s website had a brief description of how zoning works. The public’s ability to affect a project depends a great deal on the type of application being made. The staff is busy now, but this could a productive use of an intern’s time.