UNION — From the outside, the club could be mistaken for the bowling alley next to it.

But when you walk in, you get it. A handful of onlookers line a stage next to a bar stocked with beef jerky. Above them, under dim lights and blaring music, writhing bodies spin and slink around silver-colored poles.

Hott 22 is a strip club about the size of a bread box, but for the good folks of Union Township, it is also a civic embarrassment that has defied all attempts to shut it down.

Now, 16 years after the first legal salvo, residents say the battle needs to end.

“They ought to make up their mind,” said Jessie Tremblay, 85, who lives near the club. “Either they want it there or they don’t want it there.”

If only it were that simple.

Over the years, the township and the strip club have squabbled over whether the club was a prostitution front, whether it was too close to the bowling alley, even how close its strippers could get to clients.

To each side, the fight — one of the longest and most bizarre legal dramas in New Jersey — has assumed a bigger question of identity, pitting the idea of free enterprise against a community’s morality.

"All we really want is to be left alone," said Kevin Hickey, the club’s owner. "I just want the right to run my business."

Daniel Antonelli, a Union Township attorney, argues the club violates a 1995 state law banning sexually oriented business from 1,000 feet of a residential area.

"Our position is clear — comply with the law," he said.

At issue recently is whether the township owes Hott 22 $80,000 in legal fees that the club incurred while opposing a township ordinance that prohibited dancers from taking tips and dancing closer to a customer than six feet. That ordinance was later tossed.

But this is not the first nor likely the last time the township and the club have been intertwined in the justice system. And if nothing else, the case shows that with enough determination — and willingness to pay lawyers — it is possible to wage the legal equivalent of the Hundred Years’ War in New Jersey courtrooms.

"We’ve been here 15 years, and I guess they don’t want us here — that’s obvious. But I just want the right to run my business," Hickey said.

WAY BACK WHEN

It all started when the club opened in September of 1995.

It was then that the strip club’s former owner, Dan Russo, said he decided to change his bar, The Cactus Club, which catered to lesbians, to a nude dance club known as Hott 22.

"It’s only a show, and that’s all it ever was," said Russo, 66, in a recent interview. "It’s burlesque."

Shortly after Hott 22 opened, the township sought to close the club saying that it violated a state law that prohibits such businesses near recreational facilities — like the bowling alley next door. Russo sought an injunction in federal court to stop the township from enforcing the state law. Meanwhile, the war was being fought on other fronts. Police issued some 90 complaints against the club charging violations of more than one ordinance.

In 1997, the state Division of Alcohol Beverage Control charged 12 dancers at Hott 22 with prostitution and Russo with maintaining a house of prostitution. Russo filed a federal lawsuit saying his civil rights were violated. A municipal judge later cleared the dancers and a manager who was charged in one of the raids, saying there was no proof illegal activities were taking place at the club.

Then, in 2006, the township passed yet another ordinance that prohibited sexual dancing any closer than six feet to customers. The club took the township to court. The ordinance was repealed in March 2009.

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Which brings the sides to the current state of play: Russo is seeking what he says is $80,000 in legal fees from the township. The township, however, is planning its own appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Russo sees the December decision as a victory.

"Many times people don’t have the money to defend themselves against these ordinances," said Russo, who said he spent over $1 million on legal fees in the past 15 years. "We fought them and we won."

Russo sold the club to his manager, Hickey, last year and moved to Florida, but he’s not completely out of the business; he recently opened another strip club in Pennsylvania.

An attorney for Russo said it could be a while before the club sees any money from the township but believes they will ultimately prevail because the lawsuit brought about change in the law.

Vincent Verdiramo, an attorney who represents Russo and the video store, said that by repealing the ordinance, "the township took their ball and went home."

"It sorts of helps level the playing field now that the town has something to lose," he added.

However, attorneys for Union Township maintain that the 2006 ordinance was repealed because of another case they had pending in the courts over the club violating state law.

"The township welcomes any business that’s operating within the confines of the law," added Antonelli. "If (the club) complies with the law, then that’s acceptable."

Some Union residents feel like the battle is a never-ending story that needs to find a period.

"It needs to be settled," said Woodley Mark, 21, of Union, who sometimes bowls at the bowling alley next door to the strip club. "It’s pointless to have something going on that long. If it’s still going on, that means (the township) can’t get them out and they’re actually winning."

Hickey, 29, has his own theory on why the township continues to fight.

"I mean I don’t know if they spent so much time and effort on it now that on their own principle they feel like they have to continue," he said of the township. "What other reason is there? We keep going to court."