Lawsuit seeks to close Galleria-area strip club

In a new episode of the long-running battle between sexually oriented businesses and government officials, attorneys for Harris County and the city of Houston filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to have the Treasures strip club declared a public nuisance and shut down.

"Treasures is an epicenter of illegal activity," Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan, who filed on behalf of the state of Texas, said on Wednesday. "This is to close down one very big operation that impacts the community around it."

The filing alleges that 5647 Westheimer is the location of human trafficking, habitual prostitution and drug activity where owners, management and employees engage in "gang related organized criminal activities that constitute a public nuisance." The petition lists 40 offenses, mostly prostitution, documented at the club over the last four years. How many of those cases resulted in charges or convictions is unclear.

Treasures attorney Al Van Huff said the club is being targeted in retaliation for challenging the city's sexually oriented business ordinance and because the city has not persuaded the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to cancel or block the renewal of the establishment's liquor license.

"Now they're trying a different tactic to achieve the same result," he said. "We deny that prostitution and human trafficking and narcotics violations are occurring on Treasures' premises."

Ryan and City Attorney David Feldman are seeking a permanent injunction, which would close Treasures for one year. This is the first time officials have used the Texas nuisance law against Treasures.

Similar legal strategies were used to shut down the Penthouse strip club, also on West­heimer, in 2009 for a year and to clear local apartment complexes of gangs and drug dealing.

Notice to other clubs

The filing further alleges that "Treasures maintains a façade of legitimacy to facilitate an organized 'combination' of manager-employees, pimps and prostitutes" and that the "city and state have no other adequate remedy at law to prevent the continued maintenance of the property as a common and public nuisance."

The Houston Police Department has been investigating Treasures since 2008 and intensively for the last six months, Feldman said.

"They masquerade as legitimate businesses, but these high-end strip clubs like Treasures really are hubs of human trafficking," he said, later noting that the establishment averages $20 million in annual alcohol sales. "Treasures happens to be the most prominent of these clubs. It's the largest. It is clearly the most visible and most notable and prominent. … We are hopeful that with this action, we serve notice not only on Treasures, but the other clubs out there that Houston-Harris County is not going to put up with this type of criminal activity."

Dancers from Nevada

Van Huff, who has represented the club for more than a decade, said the city has been conducting undercover vice operations at Treasures for years and "the vast majority of the cases are dismissed because they are so weak or the dancers are acquitted at trial."

The trafficking allegations stem from police probes revealing that some of the dancers are transported from Nevada to Texas, then from club to club within Houston, and reside in Galleria- area apartments and condos "where they are maintained by the pimps," Feldman said at a news conference.

"A half-mile from the Galleria, which is supposed to be a showplace for this city, we have that criminal enterprise going on," the city attorney declared. "So, would it make a difference to quality of life? It certainly would if they were shut down."

cindy.george@chron.com twitter.com/cindylgeorge