Four people associated with the now-closed New York social club – including its registered agent and its organizer – were charged on Wednesday with conducting illegal business.
Last summer, police increased their measures near the club in downtown Salt Lake City after a series of fights and shootings, one of which left a club patron dead.
The club, located at 60 W. Market St., advertised itself as a private late-night venue where invited guests were served free alcohol by event organizers and could party into the early hours after the bars closed at 2 a.m.
The fact that guests were invited and on a list and did not purchase alcohol was an important caveat, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services told The Salt Lake Tribune in August 2023. If the club had simply let anyone in and sold alcohol, it would have needed a liquor license, which it did not have.
After a lengthy investigation, Salt Lake City police believe the club acted in exactly this way.
Charging documents filed Wednesday in 3rd District Court show that when a Salt Lake City Police SWAT unit raided the club in August 2023, officers found 122 bottles of alcohol on the premises – 40 of them in the bar.
They also found credit card readers and a cash register, the indictment states.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The New York building on Market Street on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, where the New York Social Club is open late on weekends.
“(The officer executing the search warrant) knew from previous undercover investigations that this business was operated as a bar/nightclub with no guest list and sold alcohol to customers,” charging documents state.
In interviews with investigators, employees confirmed that the venue operated as a nightclub. An employee who worked at the New Yorker since September 2022 said the club’s registered agent, Glen Ross Easthope, instructed her to charge patrons admission. She said Easthope paid her in cash.
Another employee hired by Easthope told police she would “allow people into the nightclub as long as they paid,” charging documents say. Easthope’s son, who worked “behind the bar,” also told police he was paid in cash.
Easthope has been charged with money laundering and a number of illegal activities, both of which are second-degree felonies. Promoter Kevin Smith faces the same charges.
Prosecutors also charged an employee who told investigators the club did not have a scanner to check IDs, so they conducted a visual inspection of patrons before entry. He “admitted that he sells marijuana because the business is a nightclub.”
During the search, officers found a pistol and 41 grams of cannabis, the indictment states.
A fourth man encountered by police at the club was charged with possession of a stolen handgun.
Easthope did not respond to the Tribune’s request for comment Thursday. He has previously been convicted of operating a business without a license.
Smith and the other two men charged had not been assigned an attorney as of Thursday afternoon, so The Tribune was unable to reach them for comment.
When asked why nearly a year passed between police officers executing the warrant and prosecutors filing charges, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill responded in a written statement that white-collar crimes are “complex investigations that often involve financial records and documents that can take months to review.”
“That’s why,” Gill said, “we took the time necessary to make sure we fully understood the case before filing charges.”
(Salt Lake City Police Department) Salt Lake City Police officers converse after executing a search warrant at the New York City Social Club on August 26, 2023.
Deadly problems
Salt Lake City police said they were “very well informed” about the New York social club when The Tribune spoke to them last summer.
Spokesman Brent Weisberg said at the time that police had been working for several months to curb violent crime “in/around” the club.
The violent crime includes at least three shootings, including the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Halapain Moala on June 4, 2023. The suspect in that crime, 23-year-old Molitoni Vainuku, was charged with murder and later arrested in March.
Vainuku is described in the charging documents as a “documented member of the Tongan Crip Gang.” He is alleged to have shot Moala as the 22-year-old and his friends walked from the club to their car.
While that shooting and two others did not occur inside the club itself, all occurred nearby outside — prompting the owner to evict the club from its building in July. Officers also responded to several altercations that summer, including a stabbing.
(Salt Lake City Police Department) A bullet trail that struck the U.S. Federal Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City during a shooting near Market Street on June 3, 2023.
“The tenant has failed to operate the premises safely and reliably,” an attorney wrote in the eviction documents. “The risk of injury or death, as well as property damage, is simply too high to allow the tenant to continue to use the premises.”
The property owners were successful and a judge ordered the building to be vacated before August 31, 2023.
Prior to the eviction, Salt Lake City police conducted “enhanced patrol operations” near the club. Between June 9, 2023, and July 15, 2023, there were more than 30 traffic stops and 50 “community contacts” with officers, resulting in 15 arrests, six firearms seized, and an unspecified amount of marijuana and cocaine, according to a press release.
Salt Lake City police would not say when increased patrol services at the location ended, indicating they would continue beyond June 17, 2023. A spokesman said a police bicycle squad continues to patrol the area and said violent crime in the district where the club is located has dropped 21% since the beginning of the year.
