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Nightclub loses liquor license for one month
By JEREMY J. ALFORD
Courier Capitol Correspondent
November 28, 2002
BATON ROUGE – A Houma nightclub will not be able to sell liquor for the entire month of January as the result of a plea agreement for its management allowing "lewd and immoral" acts to take place inside The Abyss.
The decision, which also carried a $2,000 fine, came after a 15-minute hearing Wednesday involving the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control and club owners George Bourg and Lawrence Hyatt of Houma Triangle Inc., which operates the club.
The owners pleaded guilty to a variety of charges stemming from the July 11 of Stephen Glover, a.k.a. Steve-O of MTV’s "Jackass" program.
Glover took the stage the night in question and set his hair on fire, chewed glass, stapled women’s underwear to his bare chest and tacked his scrotum to his upper thigh with an industrial stapler.
The audience attending that night’s performance cheered Glover on and even screamed their request for the latter several times before Glover performed the act.
"I had walked only a few blocks down the street and I knew Louisiana was serious," Glover said in videotape of the performance provided to ATC officials by a member of the audience.
According to ATC Commissioner Murphy J. Painter, if Glover didn’t know for sure "Louisiana was serious," he does now.
"In all fairness, it’s not immoral from the sexual content. What we have here is a deranged, misguided individual performing acts against his own body to make money. I just don’t know what he gets out of it," Painter said.
On the tape, Glover said, "This is not a hobby. This is my life."
Houma Triangle’s attorney, James Alcock of Houma, said his clients do regret the incident but said the crowd got what they came for.
"My clients realize now that this is not an appropriate form of entertainment. I can say, in defense, that the people in the audience, as viewers of MTV, were aware of the extent of the antics of Steve-O and were not caught unaware," Alcock said.
Administrative Prosecutor Lori Hebert says the fine and penalty would have been more severe if the duo had not entered into the agreement.
"By agreeing to do this, we released about 15 witnesses from testifying. The agreement also eliminated any hopes for them to take it up on appeal," Hebert said.
Bourg and Hyatt were charged by ATC with one count of each of the following charges:
• Disturbance of the peace with obscene, "lewd, immoral or improper entertainment" on a licensed premises.
• Performing acts which "stimulate the displaying of the pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals or nipple of the female breast."
• Performing acts which "stimulate the touching, caressing or fondling of the breast, buttocks, anus or genitals."
•Selling alcohol at an event where the above charges occur.
Additionally, Bourg and Hyatt were arrested by the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office in the weeks following the show and were both charged as principals to second-degree battery and obscenity. Alcock told ATC officials that the men had entered into a pre-trial diversion agreements to deal with the charges.
The battery charges were filed because an unidentified man was allowed to pick up a Bayou Blue teen-ager and slam the youth on his head during the performance. The teen suffered minor injuries following the incident.
As for the obscenity charges, in addition to Glover exposing his genitalia, an unidentified woman is seen exposing her breasts on the tape.
Further violence can be found in the performance as Ernie Dardar, an off-duty Terrebonne jailer, is seen punching one volunteer in the face and kicking another in the groin. Dardar was placed on a two-week suspension for the acts.
Lenny Swiderski, who handled marketing for The Abyss, was also charged by local police, but ATC officials had no update on his status. However, Alcock told them that Swiderski had "tendered his letter of resignation" to the club.
Glover, who spent four days in a Los Angeles County jail on Terrebonne charges of felony obscenity and principal to second-degree battery, is scheduled for arraignment Dec. 16.
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