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Cousin Danny's Exotic Haven: 'Devil' or victim of a violent city?

8 people have been killed within 2 blocks of the strip club since 2009

Bishop Melvin Rogers, 90, deliberately situated Parham Chapel M & L Church by the strip club.
Bishop Melvin Rogers, 90, deliberately situated Parham Chapel M & L Church by the strip club.Read moreCLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer

When Maurice Adside was fatally shot last month outside Cousin Danny's Exotic Haven in West Philadelphia, he became the eighth person killed since 2009 within two blocks of the decades-old strip club.

His surviving relatives and some residents of the block are convinced that all the bloodshed flows from Cousin Danny's. But the club's owner, Daniel Freeman Sr., and its manager, Daniel Freeman Jr., portray their business as a victim of a violent city.

"How can we stop people's kids from killing each other in the neighborhood?" asked Freeman Jr. "People say it's the bar . . . but it's the neighborhood. It's a typical neighborhood in Philadelphia, and it's the reality that so many people live with every single day."

Nestled between churches on the 300 block of South 52nd Street, Cousin Danny's is just 300 feet from Samuel B. Huey Elementary School and kitty-corner from Malcolm X Park. Its red awning and flashy sign promoting "Live GO-GO GIRLS Daily" stand out amid churches and shuttered shops. Debris litters the sidewalk.

The Philadelphia Police Department says seven men and one woman between ages 20 and 39 have been slain within a two-block radius of the club since August 2009. Three of the killings are unsolved. In each, police listed the motive as either "unknown" or "argument."

One of the "unknowns" was the August 2009 shooting of bouncer Orlando Morrison just inside the club's front door. Freeman Jr. said the alleged shooter was motivated by issues with Morrison that had nothing to do with the club.

Two of the other eight killings - including the Feb. 17 shooting of Adside, 31, of South Philadelphia - happened just outside Cousin Danny's, police said.

Capt. Robin Wimberly, commander of the 18th Police District, said the immediate area around the strip club is not even one of the most violent sections of the district.

"One murder is troubling because it means one family has to put someone to rest, but eight murders in a condensed area, of course it sounds really over the top," she said. "I don't know the reasoning for some of these homicides, but what I will say is, one murder is too many."

Adside's sister, Keya, 36, said she didn't know if her "baby brother" had been inside Cousin Danny's on the night he was killed, but he often stopped there when he went to visit their mother, who lives nearby. Richard McMillan, 23, is charged with shooting Adside, a father of three, several times from behind shortly after 11 p.m.

Keya Adside and two residents of the block say that someone from Cousin Danny's moved a memorial of stuffed animals, candles, and flowers that had been left in front of the club to a spot down the street to make it appear that her brother had not been shot in front of the club.

The Freemans deny it. Freeman Jr., who said he knew Maurice Adside from the club, said he even attended the funeral.

Although she isn't sure what motivated her brother's killer, Keya Adside said, she wants to start a petition to get Cousin Danny's shut down.

"Too many people get shot there, too many people get in altercations there," she said. "Once they close that, it will be less drama on this block and less drama in this area. Every time you turn around, something is always happening there."

One person who can attest to that is a 53-year-old resident who said she saw Adside's body Feb. 17.

"I've never seen a dead body before. I was scared," said the woman, who declined to give her name for fear of retribution. "All of the problems seem to stem from that bar. It's a devil."

But Wimberly, the police captain, wasn't willing to ascribe the violence to the club. She noted that the area is a mix of businesses and residential properties and is "very transient."

"Not all things can be attributed to that establishment because, if you figure, the people who frequent that establishment also live here," she said. "I can't say in this conversation, 'Yes, it is definitely that bar.' I can't."

One man without a bad word to say about Cousin Danny's is 90-year-old Bishop Melvin Rogers, whose Parham Chapel M & L Church stands next door to the strip club.

Spry for his years, the sharply dressed and bespectacled Rogers sat inside his small chapel, where parishioners have made signs from old ceiling tiles and the pulpit was handcrafted in wood by the bishop, a former union carpenter.

Rogers, who bought the church property in 1960 when the strip club next door was called the Pony Tail, remembers when the area was a mecca for bars and clubs. He said he was "spiritually led" to open a church next to a strip club.

"My job here was to try to influence them," Rogers said. "I just had a light and I lit it, and they could stand under my light, and I tried not to go in the dark spots. We opened a church next to a heathen land because we wanted to expand, exploit, and influence."

Throughout those 55 years, Rogers said, he's shared a mutual respect with the club's owners.

"Whoever the [owner] is now, he's always friendly and we're respectful to each other, but he is in opposition to what we stand for," Rogers said. "But I'm not here to chase him. I'm here to change him, if I can.

"The secret is this: You're going to have to learn to love what you're doing and love the people, even if they're your enemies. And if you show love to them and respect to them, you plant a seed."

Obviously, the violence has shown that not every seed took root.

"I didn't say we made a great accomplishment," he said.

Freeman Jr., 34, said his father, who immigrated to the United States from Liberia "with a dollar and a dream," didn't know the area when he bought the club in 2001 and renamed it Cousin Danny's.

"As soon as we got there, we started incurring some of the violence in the neighborhood," he said.

In 2004, two regular customers broke in and stole cash, a computer, camera equipment, and a gun, according to court documents.

A week later, the same men broke into Freeman Sr.'s home and beat him and his family members with a baseball bat, tied them up with duct tape, and demanded $20,000 from the club's receipts, court documents show.

Asked why his father stuck with the business after that, Freeman Jr. said it was out of necessity.

"What are you supposed to do? Just pack up and sell your business you've spent your life's savings on?" he said.

The Freemans said any crime outside their strip club doesn't reflect the atmosphere inside.

"We are not a nuisance bar," said Freeman Sr., 62. "We are a good, family-oriented bar."

Both men said two bouncers use handheld metal detectors to check patrons at the door for weapons.

"In the bar, there's peace, there's no drama," Freeman Jr. said. "But when they go outside the bar, they do what they want to do. That's not my responsibility."

Freeman Jr. pointed out that the 18th District headquarters is only about three blocks from Cousin Danny's.

"We can't help what goes on, and obviously the police can't either, because they're right in the mix also," he said.

The murders in the area have been "always over something stupid," Freeman Jr. said.

"It's not real, what people die for in all neighborhoods in Philadelphia," he said. "Nowadays they're preaching that Black Lives Matter, but we should be preaching that to each other, because obviously the people in our own neighborhoods don't respect black lives either."

His father agreed.

"The bar is not the problem, it's the drug dealing in the neighborhood; the bar just happens to be there," Freeman Sr. said. "We do what we have to, but at the end of the day, it's a street problem in West Philadelphia, in North Philadelphia, in Southwest Philadelphia. It's not a bar problem. Bars are not doing the killing.

"If the police can't handle it, how can I handle it? You try to go out there and tell these people not to stand on the corner, they'll shoot you."

With all the lawlessness around it, is Cousin Danny's itself operating within the law?

The Freemans say the club has all required licenses. But Karen Guss, a spokeswoman for the Department of Licenses and Inspections, said she could find no record of any licenses or permits issued to Cousin Danny's, including the permit required to operate a strip club.

In 2010, Cousin Danny's was issued a cease-and-desist order for lacking a special assembly occupancy license and not complying with the fire code, but the bar reopened within two months, Guss said.

And the state police's Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement has issued eight citations since 2003 to Cousin Danny's, including ones for lewd entertainment and for sale of alcohol to a minor, said bureau Officer Frank Spera. He said the club's current liquor license is good until Oct. 31.

But although the club's license is current, its taxes are anything but. Freeman Sr. owes more than $70,000 in back real estate taxes, according to Guss and online tax records. Freeman Sr. said he owes "some back taxes."

"It's not like I'm the only person who owes back taxes," he said. "Everybody in Philadelphia owes back taxes. With all of the violence on the streets, people are going to stop coming around, so you fall on some situations, like the taxes."

Freeman Jr. said the violence has "put a damper on our business."

"How are we supposed to make a living and pay all our bills if people keep shooting each other around the neighborhood?" he asked. "It makes us look bad."

The Freemans have no plans to move. But they aren't hopeful that the neighborhood will get better any time soon.

"The reason this is hitting me so hard is because of what happened to Maurice," Freeman Jr. said. "But then again, next year there will probably be another murder.

"That's the reality. Every year, it's somebody."

farrs@phillynews.com

215-854-4225@FarFarrAway