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Volume XX • Number 30 • July 25 - 31, 2013 •
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Stanton ‘doubles down’ on Strip Club $upport Calls notorious owners of strip club chain ‘philanthropists’
By Riverdale Review Staff City Council candidate Cliff Stanton is standing up for strip club owners. Following last week’s report in the Riverdale Review highlighting the thousands of dollars Stanton has taken from strip club proprietors, Stanton has defended the contributions while denouncing this newspaper. Stanton specifically praised the owner of both Scores and the Penthouse Executive Club--Robert Gans--as a philanthropist. “These men are excellent businessmen with a long history of philanthropy,” said Stanton, who also described Robert Gans and his son, Richard, as the owners of Metropolitan Lumber and Hardware, ignoring their considerable public ties to adult entertainment and strip clubs. At least one borough political insider could not believe that not only did Stanton take the jiggle joint money, but that he was defending the checks loudly, rather than trying to downplay them, if not just returning the checks or donating them to charity. “Calling these guys hardware store owners is like calling George Steinbrenner a small-time shipping executive from Cleveland,” said the insider. “There are some checks you just don’t take, and sex work is at the top of the list.” While Stanton is painting the Gans family as hardware
store owners and charitable men, Robert Gans himself has had no problem promoting his strip club business model. Earlier this month, Robert Gans proudly announced the opening of Scores Atlantic City at the Trump Taj Mahal, which will be the first ever strip club in Atlantic City to also feature gambling. In fact, he saw the location as more than just your everyday strip club. “We wanted to open something that had never been done before: an adult entertainment complex, not a strip club. It will have something for everybody,” Gans told New Jersey’s Courier-Post when making the announcement. Scores Atlantic City will feature a number of amenities including The Distrikt, which is, according to the press release, “a red-lit fantasy corridor featuring surprise attractions and the possibility of one-on-one time with your favorite entertainer.” Stanton’s campaign has taken to “blaming the messenger,” and has called on both the campaign of Andrew Cohen, the frontrunner in the City Council race, and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz to denounce the article that appeared in last week’s Review. Dinowitz replied angrily to the charges, and challenged Stanton to return $9000 in tainted funds. “Although Mr. Stanton continues to attack me and one of the newspapers that reported these very questionable
contributions, at no time did he deny the accuracy of the reports. He owes the voters of the Bronx’s 11th council district an explanation for these contributions to his campaign. “I call on Clifford Stanton to do the right thing and return all of these questionable campaign contributions immediately.” Andrew Wolf, the Editor and Publisher of The Riverdale Review called Stanton’s actions, “pathetic,” and noted that the candidate’s ties to the strip club industry were also noted in The Riverdale Press. “He suggests that Mr. Gans is a hardware store owner and philanthropist and deceptively tries to hide what even Mr. Gans is proud to announce to anyone who will listen: that he is a major figure in the adult entertainment world,” noted Mr. Wolf. “A one minute search in the Internet will reveal that everything we have alleged about Mr. Gans – and more – is true. The question for Mr. Stanton is why Robert and Richard Gans, the strip club kings, have taken such an expensive interest in Clifford Stanton and the race for the City Council seat in this district. Stanton insists that he is not personal friends with the Gans family, so a reasonable person must conclude that these huge contributions are business. And any business that strip club operators have in our communities have the poContinued on Page 7
Freight train derailment halts Hudson line train service By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER It’s never happened before, according to MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders. Shortly after a CSX freight train left the Oak Point train yard near Hunts Point last Thursday night, its four-day journey to the Selkirk train yard near Albany came to a screeching halt between the Marble Hill and Spuyten Duyvil stations at around 8:30 p.m. The 24-car train was hauling New Yorkers’ municipal solid waste over Metro-North Hudson Line tracks from Oak Point, the city’s largest freight yard, to a Virginia landfill by way of Selkirk. Ten cars suddenly derailed, halting all Hudson Line service south of Yonkers until this past Monday morning, when service resumed with delays because only a single track could be cleared of the wreckage. Regular daytime train service with minor delays is now available starting with the first morning peak-period train each day. The cause of the derailment is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board in cooperation with MTA’s safety department. “They’re not looking at the weather” as a cause, Anders said. “They’re looking at track, they’re
looking at loading, and they’re looking at weight.” So why was all that municipal solid waste traveling north before heading south? Because the CSX route to Virginia calls for crossing the Hudson, and the only rail bridge happens to be in Selkirk.
The city’s Department of Sanitation transports the municipal waste to the Oak Point Yard in The Bronx. The garbage then takes the scenic route upstate in one of four nightly freight moves each Monday through Saturday, starting after the evening peak, Anders said. At the Spuyten Duyvil station
during the early stages of the cleanup last Friday morning, the torrid air was infused with the odor of trash from cars that had disgorged their contents onto the tracks. But garbage wasn’t “strewn all over the place,” Anders explained. “A couple of containers opened up and broke, but
it wasn’t like it was everywhere. And we’re not leaving it there.” The actual derailment site was in a canyon-like section of track carved out of a tall rock outcropping, making repair work with large equipment especially challenging. The area is around a bend and out of view from the Spuyten Duyvil station platform. MTA signal employees on Friday would not share their theories about the cause, but they were confident it had nothing to do with signals. In a slow and laborious process captured on video and viewable at the MTA’s website, disabled container cars were being hoisted up by a crane and deposited on flatbed carriers to be hauled away by an engine car. According to mta.info on Tuesday, there was “Good Service” on the Hudson Line. But after 10 p.m., passengers who ordinarily commute between Grand Central Terminal and the Riverdale or Spuyten Duyvil stations will find their usual Hudson Line trains diverted to the Mount Vernon West station, where Hudson Rail Link shuttle buses will run to specific stops on their usual routes. Riverdalians working late at Continued on Page 12