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Crash closes strip club -- temporarily
By MARY SPICUZZA NEW PORT RICHEY -- "Franki" swung around a pole outside Club Five Four on Wednesday afternoon. She would have much rather been doing her act inside the strip club, where she gets paid to perform. But Franki, who would only give her professional name, and the other 16 women scheduled to dance Wednesday couldn't make it inside. Shortly before noon, an eastbound Ford van drove off State Road 54 and
When the van hit, 32-year-old deejay and doorman Rorre Vacchiano was in the club's office, talking to a bartender on the telephone. First he heard a loud "ba-boom," Vacchiano said. Then he heard his coworker Brandon Derry yelling, "Hey brother, there's a van in the wall!" Vacchiano saw a cloud of dust and bricks, and furniture flying through the bar. "The wall and our Golden Tee golf game were comin' down," Vacchiano said. "All the mirrors shattered. Everything just flew." Vacchiano said the pool table and games were destroyed, but it could have been worse. When Club Five Four is open, from noon until 2 a.m., a half-dozen regulars usually hang out in the section that was struck by the van. And Vacchiano said he was standing only 15 feet from where the van stopped. As dancers showed up for work, they were met with the sight of the back of a white van sticking out of the club's crumbling wall. Vacchiano told them the club was closed until it could be deemed safe by the county. Meanwhile the van's driver sat inside a friend's car in the club parking lot. "It was just an accident," said the man, who identified himself as James Westley. "I blacked out." He did not leave in an ambulance, but said he planned to go to a hospital. He said he was driving the white Ford van for his job, but declined to give his employer's name. Records show the van is registered to FLA International Bakery of Holiday. The bakery did not return telephone calls Wednesday afternoon about the crash. Neither did the Florida Highway Patrol. As for the van, a state trooper on the scene said it would remain in the wall until a contractor could stabilize the club's wall and ceiling. "If we move the van, the building may come down," said Tim Nichols of the FHP. Charlene Daprile of the county's community development division said late Wednesday afternoon that the building was condemned until a certified contractor determined its frame hasn't been destroyed. But Vacchiano, who has worked at Club Five Four for five years, said this is the fourth time a vehicle has driven into the club -- and it has never stopped Five Four from re-opening quickly. "I'm losing money right now," he said. So were the dancers. Each dancer makes $200 to $250 per shift, he said. Still, he and the other employees joked about alternate plans for the evening. They had planned a big birthday party for another deejay, and suggested holding the festivities in the parking lot instead. "We'll have a parking lot party," said club dancer "Danielle." By late afternoon the hole in the wall was boarded up and by 6 p.m. the club reopened. Vacchiano said the county gave him the permit needed to reopen. "I was on it, bro," he told a reporter Wednesday evening. "I had to work to get this place back open. We have to make money, you know." By 8 p.m., club workers were inflating the Jell-O wrestling tub. It was back to business as usual. -- Staff writer Jamal Thalji contributed to this report. Mary Spicuzza can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6232 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6232. Her e-mail address is spicuzza@sptimes.com.
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From today's Pasco Times Letters |
