Peeping Tom falls through strip club glass dressing room ceiling

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Written by: 195 on Jan 28, 2010

The mind boggles at this one: A guy trying to sneak in the dressing room of nude performers. What did he expect to see?

Women with their clothes on?

A few minutes before 2 a.m. Saturday, a Seattle police officer was dispatched to the Lusty Lady – the peep show strip club in the 1300 block of First Avenue.

A man there planned to crawl into the dancers' dressing room, police said. When they arrived, he was still in the ceiling crawl space.

"SPD officers arrived and contacted the suspect as he was attempting to climb down near the front door," an officer wrote in an incident report. "The subject … was taken into custody (by) SPD officers after he jumped down from the crawl space."

The man was booked into King County Jail for investigation of malicious mischief and had a probable cause hearing Saturday. But a malicious mischief charge wasn't filed, and he was released from jail Monday night.

Police were told the man, 27, entered the Lusty Lady through the front door backwards and entered stall No. 7. Police said he climbed through the ceiling panels and onto the glass ceiling above the dance floor.

A stripper "was startled when (the man's) legs came crashing through the glass panel ceiling above her," according to the police report. "She stated before the subject fell through she had heard what she thought was kicking or pounding above her head."

Yes, they do have a glass ceiling at the strip club.

The damage to the ceiling tiles above the front door, the glass ceiling above the strippers and the ceiling crawl space in stall No. 7 were so severe the Lusty Lady – normally a 24-hour operation – had to close temporarily.

So much for its famous marquee message: "We're open, not clothed."

Police say Saturday's incident wasn't the only time the guy made a dumb move.

In 2004, he was convicted of theft and obstructing a public officer in Seattle Municipal Court. The man also was convicted of first degree criminal trespass for a 2002 case.

And Saturday's incident wasn't the first time the Lusty Lady's atmosphere had been damaged by an unruly patron. In June 2008, a man upset he had to purchase porn DVDs before watching them tore a large erotic painting from the wall.

A Lusty Lady clerk chased the man out the front door and ran by the robber's accomplice. The clerk caught up to the suspect at the Harbor Steps and began to take him back to the theater.

As he did so, the man's accomplice pushed the clerk from behind, grabbed the painting and fled on foot with the first man. The men dropped the painting, valued at about $1,300, and escaped. Minor damage was done to the canvas – and the employee . Both returned safely to the Lusty Lady.

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