On Friday, the Dallas Police Department and an alphabet soup’s worth of federal agencies, armored vehicle included, descended on the pornateria called Paris Adult Book Store on Harry Hines Boulevard, where prostitutes paraded in the parking lot and traffic spilled onto the street in the middle of most workday afternoons. Which, let me be clear, is not an exaggeration.
It was the most open secret in town this side of scrapping City Hall. There are videos all over YouTube, many more than a year old, of the parking lot job fair. And Paris workers, of course, knew what was happening. When I visited in June – for work, come on now – the women were allowed to stash their bags and backpacks inside, near the front door. Only when I started asking questions did the manager feign outrage and shoo them off the property. For about six minutes.
Barricades now block the driveaway. And two notes are taped to the Paris’ front doors, each reading: “Closed until further notice.”
Friday afternoon Dallas PD also took down the most infamous strip club on Harry Hines: Pandora’s Men’s Club, an all-nude joint where it was BYOB and a spare $100 for a VIP bracelet that allowed patrons to “negotiate sexual activities with any employee of the club.” The latter is according to the lawsuit filed late last week by the Dallas City Attorney’s Office, which on Friday convinced a judge to OK a temporary shutdown at Pandora’s.
There are also two pieces of paper affixed to Pandora’s front door. One is the temporary restraining order. The other says, “CLOSED FOR REMODEL.” Because I guess, “Closed because the city accused us of being a brothel” was too long. A court hearing is scheduled at the end of the month.
Opinion
All is quiet in the Paris Adult Book Store parking lot now. It wasn’t this way, oh, a week ago, when women worked the lot at all hours and traffic often overflowed onto Harry Hines Boulevard.
Robert Wilonsky
I’m shocked, shocked to find that prostitution is going on along Harry Hines.
Wait, wait, no. That’s wrong. I’m not shocked, meant to say. At least not since the early 1980s, when my father used to make my younger brother and me close our eyes to stop from staring at all that skin whenever we’d drive to the Mecca for breakfast or the UA Walnut Hill 6. At this point I’m pretty sure that’s all the northern stretch of Harry Hines is known for – that and maybe Keller’s and a really good framing shop if you need a recommendation.
Even the folks living underneath Harry Hines know what’s up.
The reason I started asking the City Attorney’s Office about Pandora’s – two weeks ago – was because two people living in and along the storm-drain tunnels told me that DPD had been pulling men and women out of the club for months and stuffing them into squad cars. Which turned out to be true, according to that lawsuit.
The only question left is: What took so long? Which is just what I asked Ryan Raybould, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas two weeks ago at the Marcus Park Recreation Center, when he and other feds announced that Project Safe Neighborhoods would be expanding from northeast Dallas to the northwest, with Harry Hines of particular interest.
Raybould said something about “conversations with our state and local and federal partners.” He said this was mostly Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux’s doing, so I asked him, too, why now?
Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux spoke on Feb. 3 about increased local and federal law enforcement activity in northwest Dallas. Ryan Raybould, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, is standing behind him.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
“I’ll make it very simple for you,” the chief said. “I’ve heard it. I’ve been in many meetings where it’s been discussed. It’s been discussed to me while I’m at church. It’s my job to crush it. It’s going to get crushed.”
Through their attorneys, Paris’ co-owner Gary Hartstein and Pandora’s co-owner, Douglas Ernest of Grapevine, declined to comment. Hartstein, the son of a man who screened X-rated movies at St. Louis drive-ins, also co-owns the New Fine Arts chain of adult video shops, where law enforcement conducted interviews Friday. A house on the Plano street where Hartstein lives was also raided Friday, per WFAA-Channel 8. But the cops, feds and city attorneys won’t talk further because of “ongoing investigations.”
Those investigations have been ongoing for quite a while because, according to the cops, the drug dealing and sex selling at Pandora’s didn’t stop even after vice started poking around and making arrests in early December. Which only goes to show you how embedded all of this is along Harry Hines, and how emboldened owners have grown after years of watching business boom without threat of bust.
Not sure how much I can share here – the details are … detailed – except to say that three weeks before Christmas, a DPD vice licensing unit visited Pandora’s and noticed women at the bar “wearing clothing that did not properly cover sensitive sexual areas of their bodies.” Which wasn’t allowed, since Ernest willingly surrendered Pandora’s sexually oriented business license in November, insisting instead it was a dance hall operating with a late-hours permit.
The chief and city attorneys say that was just Pandora’s way of getting around the ordinance shutting down sex businesses at 2 a.m.
Dallas police and city attorneys say that Pandora’s shouldn’t have been operating at all, certainly not until 4 in the morning, as its permit was revolved last month.
Robert Wilonsky
On Dec. 7, a detective wandered into the VIP area and noticed some grinding and groping prohibited without that SOB license. Around the corner, the detective noticed a male patron and female employee, both nude, in a private booth clearly having sex. Both were arrested and taken downtown.
Which wasn’t the end of it, per the lawsuit, which says that the club’s general manager was sitting near the entrance to the VIP area with a leather envelope and a ledger detailing dancers’ names and how much money they’d made. That manager was also arrested, but nothing changed at Pandora’s, according to city attorneys.
On Jan. 9, Comeaux sent Ernest a letter informing him the club’s dance-hall license and late-hours permit had been revoked.
I guess “remodel” is one word for it? This is what greeted visitors to Pandora’s Sunday afternoon.
Robert Wilonsky
Yet, still, Pandora’s stayed open. And people kept getting arrested.
On Jan. 21, says the lawsuit, “one of the female employees also offered to meet one of the DPD officers at a hotel room for additional sexual services.” Eight days later, vice cops watched cocaine sales while “one of the male employees at Pandora [told] DPD officers that they could use the VIP area of Pandora for the remainder of the night and do whatever they wanted with the female employees for $1,000.”
Apparently, enough was enough: On Feb. 11, the lawsuit says, Dallas PD got a call from “a distressed employee” who said the manager was demanding she have sex with Pandora’s patrons. The manager was arrested, and, eventually, the club shuttered.
“FOR REMODEL,” riiiight. Though come to think of it, the whole blasted street is long overdue for a makeover.