Glass Slipper

A stripper who reported two days early to her new job at the Glass Slipper on Lagrange Street never got a chance to strut her stuff. Instead, she wound up under arrest after a bruising battle with a waitress that left both with cuts and the club having to answer to the Boston Licensing Board.

One of two men shot in a dispute over a seat at the LaGrange Street strip club in August remains in the hospital, "still suffering serious injuries," a police detective said today.

Det. Michael Talbot was testifying at a Boston Licensing Board hearing on the Aug. 8 double shooting at closing time. Steven Gayle of Jamaica Plain was arrested not long after the shootings.

As they did at a similar hearing before the city's other licensing board in August, Talbot and club workers said Gayle was a 2-3-times-a-week customer who had never caused any problems before he allegedly opened fire that night. They said Gayle shot one man in a dispute over a seat and then, when that man's friend grabbed for him, shot him as well. He ran out, pursed first by a doorman and then a detail officer from Centerfolds next door.

Talbot said club owner Nicholas Romano has agreed to city requests for making the club safer - including a ban on backpacks, hats and sunglasses, buying a wand to search incoming customers for weapons, turning the lights up at closing and not locking the front door a few minutes before closing.

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take against the Glass Slipper for the incident.

One of the two men shot at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street a week ago remains hospitalized in critical condition - and needed emergency surgery yesterday - a Boston Police detective said today.

Sgt. Det. Michael Talbot, other police officers and the owner and some workers at the Glass Slipper testified today at a hearing by the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing on the Aug. 8 shooting, allegedly by Steven Gayle of Jamaica Plain.

Steven Gayle wanted to create a room where people could come and compete in video-game tournaments on Xboxes, WIIs and PS3s.

Now, however, Gayle sits in jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, charged with shooting two men in the head at a Chinatown strip club, allegedly after they got into an argument over them sitting in the same booth as him early this morning.

UPDATE: Suspect identified as Steven Gayle, 35, of Jamaica Plain.

This morning, blood stains the sidewalk outside the Glass Slipper, a Combat Zone holdover on LaGrange Street, where two people were shot around closing time today.

NECN reports one victim was shot in the head, the other in the chest. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports a prosecutor from the homicide unit was assigned just in case.

The DA's office adds a suspect was arrested moments after the shooting and that he is expected to be arraigned sometime today in Boston Municipal Court.

The crime scene.

The Boston Licensing Board today ordered the Glass Slipper to shut down for two days as penance for the horizontal lap dance a police detective found a dancer giving a customer early on Oct. 27.

The club, one of two strip clubs left in the Combat Zone, gets to pick when it wants to shut down.

At a hearing on Tuesday, a club manager said he was as surprised as anyone to discover the customer was lying on a couch pawing the dancer as she ground on top of him, in direct violation of a city ordinances against customer/dancer contact in general and butt grabbing in particular. The customer paid $300 for the performance in one of the club's third-floor private-party rooms; the dancer lost her job over the extra work.

A stripper caught by Boston Police detectives as she writhed on top of a patron at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street no longer works at the club, a manager told the Boston Licensing Board today.

Det. William Gallagher told the board that during a routine inspection around 1 a.m. on Oct. 27, he and another detective found a male patron lying on a couch on the club's third floor, a dancer on top of him, his hands gripping her buttocks. That violated state and city regulations, including Adult Entertainment regulation 1C, which specifically forbids customers from being allowed to grab a dancer's buttocks. Gallagher said the customer had paid $300 for the dance.

Glass Slipper manager Nicholas Germano did not dispute Gallagher's account of the $300 "private party" in a room set up for private parties.

Germano said dancers are told of the relevant regulations. Normally, a first violation results in a warning, but in this case, "it was so flagrant that we dismissed her immediately" after the club got a copy of Gallagher's report, he said.

Last year, club managers accepted similar responsibility for a similar lap dance.

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take about the infraction.