Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The Richland County Sheriff's office has issued a stop work order against a sports bar that officers say is actually a strip club.
Officers went to Mi Casita on Decker Boulevard Friday afternoon and posted the notice of the order.
"Opens up disguised as being a restaurant and as soon as the doors open they put the poles up and the stripping starts," Sheriff Leon Lott says.
The order came after an investigation where officers determined the lounge operating as a sexually oriented business. They say videos and images dating back to May 2016 depict sexually oriented activities inside.
The stop work order on Mi Casita, saying they're in violation of the county's zoning. A sexually-oriented business cannot operate within 1,000 feet of a residential area or a church.
"We gave them conditions we wanted them to meet," Lott said. "They met a few of them, but the biggest one is stop the lap dances, stop the strippers from operating."
In December, Richland County shut down the Black Pearl nightclub for a similar offense.
It was then when the county warned Mi Casita that they must comply with zoning rules, or they will be shut down.
"We attempted to work with them to let them know what they were doing wrong, we attempted to let them solve the issues and they flat refused to do it and continued to operate as a strip club," Lott says.
Gregory Lovato owns an insurance business two doors down from Mi Casita.,
"It hasn't affected my business, but it has affected Decker," he said. "Decker is a good place. It needs to be cleaned up a little bit."
Since January 1, 2016, deputies say they've responded to 32 civil disturbance calls at Mi Casita ranging from shots fired, fights in progress, and even a homicide.
"I guess there's too much money to be made in operating a sexually-oriented business illegally and we're not going to continue to let that happen," Lott said.
If Mi Casita doesn't meet the conditions of the stop-work order, the owners will face additional charges and could even be arrested.
The business license has already been pulled, but that's currently under appeal.
