Sunday 30 January 2011

Clubs reopen after vice crackdown

Two Beijing nightclubs ordered to close last year for alleged links to prostitution and breaches of fire-safety regulations have reopened, it was reported at the weekend.

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Guanyu said...

Clubs reopen after vice crackdown

Choi Chi-yuk
25 January 2011

Two Beijing nightclubs ordered to close last year for alleged links to prostitution and breaches of fire-safety regulations have reopened, it was reported at the weekend.

Flower City and Regal Club were shut down on May 11 along with Passion Club (Tianshang Renjian) and Comfort International after police in the capital launched a crackdown on vice. More than 550 female escorts suspected of providing sexual services for money were detained.

A caretaker at Flower City, in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, told Saturday’s edition of The Beijing News that business had returned to normal since it reopened on January 14, adding hostesses were available.

The report also quoted a staff member as saying the minimum room charge for four was 2,800 yuan (HK$3,300), plus a 700 yuan “sitting fee” per hostess.

Regal Club, meanwhile, had relaunched as a karaoke lounge and no longer provided hostess services, a staff member told the newspaper.

Criminal cases related to prostitution, gambling and drugs in the capital plunged by more than half last year to their lowest level since 2003, police said on Saturday. The campaign was launched after Fu Zhenhua , municipal police chief in Beijing, took office early last year.

However, a nightclub manager in Fengtai district said the crackdown had not been all that thorough. He said the authorities realised that a harsher crackdown could have resulted in social instability.

In Chongqing yesterday, a top shareholder in the city’s Hilton hotel went on trial for involvement in organised crimes, organising prostitution and bribery.

Peng Zhimin appeared at the Chongqing Municipal No1 Intermediate People’s Court with 26 alleged accomplices and five officials. He ran the Diamond Dynasty Club in the hotel basement, harbouring prostitution, drug abuse, gambling and gang activities, Xinhua reported.