Strip club operator takes deal

The club operator was ordered to pay $554 in fines and court costs.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AUSTINTOWN — The operator of the Go Go Girls Cabaret strip club on Clarkins Drive has pleaded guilty to seven minor misdemeanor charges related to building and fire code violations from last July, when he was having the club renovated before its opening.

Robert Neill, 46, whose address was listed on court documents as South Avenue, Youngstown, agreed to the plea agreement Wednesday in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown. The agreement resulted in fines of $350 and court costs of $204.

The club is in a 5,000-square-foot building attached to the former Best Value Inn & Suites in the truck stop area on state Route 46.

The charges resulted in Neill’s filing a federal lawsuit in August against Lt. Richard Milliron, fire inspector for the Austintown Fire Department; and Jeffrey Uroseva, chief building official for Mahoning County. The suit said the charges were an attempt by the fire and building departments to suppress the club’s free-speech rights because the club was planning to offer “live, exotic striptease dancing.”

But Magistrate George Limbert of Youngstown District Court ordered Neill and the two other parties to work out their differences on their own.

Kenneth Cardinal, an assistant county prosecutor who handled the case, said Neill ultimately agreed to the same terms in his plea agreement that he was offered just after he was first charged.

Milliron said Neill did live up to the terms worked out in federal court and complied with all of the building and fire codes from that point forward. The club is now open.

Cardinal said it appeared to him that Neill filed the federal suit to get around the building and fire codes.

Neill and Martin Yavorcik, his attorney, could not be reached to comment.

Cardinal said Neill told building officials that the work being done in the business was not substantial enough to require a building permit, but that was not true because cinder block walls were being removed.

“They said it was cosmetic only,” Cardinal said. When officials observed what was being done, they tried to stop the work, Cardinal said.

The building department issued a stop-work order July 9, but the club continued to work, and someone from the club removed three stop-work notices from the building, according to court documents. Neill was charged with the seven violations July 10.

runyan@vindy.com