I Don’t Know About You, But Describing A Strip Club’s Atmosphere As “Turgid” Just Gives Me The Willies . . .

Club Kalua goes on, despite the odds:

The club where Sean Bell spent the final moments of his life celebrating at his bachelor party still occupies a narrow plot at 143-08 94th Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. Half-naked women still twirl on poles, trying to interest dollar-tossing patrons. The A.T.M. with the high surcharge still occupies a corner in the back.

But there is something very different these days about this place, the Club Kalua: The alcohol is gone.

No more watered-down $20 glasses of Champagne for strippers to push on patrons. No more $16 Long Island iced teas to keep the bartenders busy. No more drink menu on the wall.

The state stripped the Club Kalua of its liquor license more than two weeks ago, reducing the club, essentially, to a juice bar with strippers.

But what surely would have been a death knell for many other bars is, for this gritty dive, merely the latest chapter in its remarkable, and in many ways inexplicable, longevity. It remains open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Nothing, it seems, can bring down the Club Kalua.

. . .

At midnight Wednesday, there were nine men and four strippers around Kalua’s main bar. The atmosphere was turgid.

One dancer approached the bar, sighed and said, “I need some liquor.”

Not too long ago, a stripper could make more than $500 a night working at the Club Kalua. Now, one is lucky to walk away with more than $100, a dancer said.

Regulars like Andre, 36, a music producer who goes by the nickname Boogie, are among the dancers’ biggest supporters. Andre, who refused to give his last name, said that he felt it was his civic duty to be there, despite the absence of alcohol.

“It’s about supporting the community,” he said, sucking on an unlit Black and Mild cigar and twirling a small plastic cup of water with his hands. “These girls, they’re part of the community. Some of them got children. It’s about giving back.”