What’s the Story on Development?

There was a Letter to the Editor in the Shelton Herald newspaper that expressed concern over approvals being given for recent applications for development. One item mentioned was a “strip club” in “the pipeline”. I’ve served on the Conservation Commission in Shelton since 1998, so I have a pretty good feel for what is being applied for in Shelton developments, even if it’s an application with no environmental aspects for the body to comment on. This mention of such an application surprised me because not only had I heard nothing about it, but having served on a committee in 2006 that put together Shelton’s master plan (aka “Plan of Conservation & Development”), I knew that while there were zoning regulations for “adult-oriented” businesses, they were pretty restrictive (Shelton Zoning Regs – see page 155 for Sec 47) and limited to Commercial CB-2 zones (with further restrictions such as distance from place of worship, school, etc). Was this a “fake news” story to build up drama prior to the election? I decided to sleuth and follow the trail of breadcrumbs.

The first bread crumb was comments made via Facebook posts that referred to a Facebook page called “Hush Shelton”, with the comments having screen shots from a mobile phone’s view showing burlesque type images. Sure enough, a Facebook Page existed (later taken down or deleted), and the graphic showed an address of 303 Old Bridgeport Avenue.

Google Maps showed the address 303 Old Bridgeport Avenue is a Chinese Restaurant known as Hunan Pan, not “Hush”, so that seemed strange. Any restaurant would require a CT liquor license from the Dept of Consumer Protection – Liquor Control Division, and those can be looked up at the State of CT. Using query item “Hush”, The State of CT, Dept of Consumer Protection, Liquor Control Division did approve an item at their 2017Jul27 8:30AM meeting for “Hush, Shelton, CT”. England, Randi L. – LCA 7894, Hush, Shelton, CT. “The Commission approves Randi Lee England acquiring 100% interest of Hush and as substitute permittee.” This information can lead us down a couple of items for research. 1) The LCA 7894, 2) The entity Hush, 3) The permittee Randi L. England.

Item 1: LCA 7894 was approved by the Liquor Control Commission for issuance of final permit at their 2017Apr6 meeting, to the location “Zigana, Shelton, CT” to the applicant “Vilarinho, Joao”, with the notation “Endorse interior access”. The same applicant under the same LCA# had no action taken at the 2017Feb28 meeting for a location of “Zigana, Bridgeport, CT”.

Item 2A: A CT State License lookup of the entity “Hush” finds a Cafe Liquor license #7894 for “Miriam Q Sibai” at the 303 Old Bridgeport Ave address, effective 2017Apr6. The backer of the liquor license is “HUSH IT UP LLC”. The license includes Endorsements for Entertainment of “Acoustics (not amplified), Comedians, Disc Jockeys, Karaoke, Live Bands, Plays/Shows” You can lookup any State of CT license online and it is a very effective tool. Miriam Sibai is shown for the credentials of several liquor licenses, 7 are inactive, and 3 are current (Keeper’s Gentlemens Club in Milford, Keystone in Bridgeport, Hush in Shelton).

Item 2B: Looking up the entity “Hush It Up LLC” at the Secretary of State’s website, shows a Business Address of 25 Sunwood Drive, and a mailing address of 82 Saw Mill Road, New Haven (which is simply a bridge overpass according to Google Maps). It also lists a sole member of Randi Lee England at residence 824 Saw Mill Road, West Haven. The entity was organized on 2016Oct4.

Item 3A: Regarding the permittee shown as Randi L. England, the City of West Haven has their property info available online via a GIS system, and the address of 824 Saw Mill Road is owner listed as “Red Eye LLC”. Back to the Secretary of State website to find that the “Red Eye LLC” has a sole Member of “Robin Cummings” listed with a “Residence Address” of “929 White Plains Road, #160, Trumbull, CT”. This turns out to be a UPS Store at the address according to Google Maps. Not much of a residence. Their “Business Address” is “33-A Light St., Stratford, CT” perhaps a mix-up? The Member Robin Cummings I will treat as breadcrumb number 4, so lets look at that item.

Item 4A: Searching Google with the unique query item of the UPS Box address – one can quickly find many matches, with one example being where Robin Cummings is listed as a claimant in a bankruptcy filing of a Recycling company, in the amount of $200k for “Consultant Fees”. I’ve witnessed bankruptcy filings, and large round numbers like that are always curious. http://bankrupt.com/misc/ctb16-30110.pdf

Item 4B: Going back to the mixup of Residence vs Business address for the Red Eye LLC filing, I used the Secretary of State website again to look up the 33-A Light St address, and among other items, a “Double Jr. Inc” company is listed back in 2006 with the President, Vice President and Secretary as being the same person (which is odd for a corporation), a Joseph Regensburger, and having that 33-A Light St address as residence. It caught my eye because the record showed they used the same filing agent as Robin Cummings for Red Eye LLC many years later (filing agent: EJB Corporate Services LLC, 921 Valley Road, Fairfield). Curiously, a Joseph Regensburger shows up with the prior mentioned bankruptcy filing that listed Robin Cummings, and with an identical $200k claim for an identically titled “consultant fees”. I will treat the filing agent EJB Corporate Services as breadcrumb item #5, and the individual Joseph Regensburger as breadcrumb item #6.

Item 4C: Before moving onto Item 5 and 6, one last result on the “33 A Light St. Stratford” address. Going back to above item 2A with Miriam Sibai listed for several Liquor Permits, From the Liquor Commissions meetings of 2017May2: “SIBAI, MIRIAM Q – LCA.6642 Keystone, Stratford, CT The Commission approves request to keep all invoices off premises at 33 A Light St., Stratford, CT.” Another Liquor permit for Miriam Sibai is shown for the “Keeper’s Gentlemens Club”, and looking up that at the Secretary of State’s website shows President and Director of “Keepers Inc” at 33 A Light Street, as Julia Kish. This wikipedia entry shows Julia Kish as being the long-time girlfriend of Gus Curcio Sr. Wikipedia publications should not be treated as fact, though many statements are linked to reference materials. Gus Curcio Sr was listed as President of Recycling Inc. in the bankruptcy paperwork mentioned above where Robin Cummings and Joseph Regensburger were listed as creditors.

Item 5: The Secretary of State’s office has no listing for “EJB Corporate Services LLC”, however searching the address of 921 Valley Road in Fairfield, The Fairfield GIS system lists “Regensburger, Karen Coppola” as owner, so resultingly, it is the address of Joseph Regensburger.

Item 6: Searching the name “Joseph Regensburger” results in many things, in particular this CT Post article about classy strip clubs in Bridgeport. There is close association with Gus Curcio Sr according to this CT Post article.

As much as the Shelton Herald reported the operator of the Hush Shelton Facebook Page saying “I want to state that this in no way shape or form is a strip club / adult entertainment establishment nor are there any plans or intentions to become such in the future.“, queries on the internet suggest otherwise. One can find Instagram posts (due to the use of hashtags for sheltonconnecticut and “hush”) where the hashtags of many colleges also are applied to the Instagram posts in the hopes of garnering traffic/attention from those searching for for said colleges, such as this one The same Instagram user also posts about “Connecticuts newest gentlemens club will be opening in a few weeks and we are looking for entertainers dancers connecticut new york massachusetts exoticdancers strippers, dm me for more info!”. Finally this same Instagram user posts photos inside the establishment showing the secret entry way that they will disguise “with fake books and other cool things”. Below are screen shots of the above links in case they are deleted or go into private mode.

Now there will be some officials who say – I didn’t know about this, or how did that slip by. Still to be determined is why the State Liquor Commission approved the permit, and what supporting confirmations were received from local City officials to render such approval at the State level. Residents should be concerned, but should note that this “speakeasy” might not be a “done deal” since our zoning regulations do not allow the “adult” activities in the zone which applies to the location. The parcel of land in question is zoned CB-1 according to the Shelton GIS system, however the City’s website Zoning Map shows it as RBD, but either way it is not a CB-2 zone which would allow “adult” activities (if approved) according to City’s Zoning Regulations.

It should be mentioned that the Shelton Herald article does say “The P&Z will discuss the business at its Tuesday, Nov. 14 meeting in City Hall. According to City Zoning Official Thomas Dingle the business will not open until it has been approved by the P&Z.” It would be helpful to have the City’s P&Z minutes available online like they used to be, but as of today (MonOct30), minutes prior to 2017 are not available. Also, the style in which more recent minutes are available online has changed, and they are not text searchable like they used to be, but are rather pdf images that require human reading and scanning to find pertinent information. I hope the above research proves to Shelton leadership, the value in having data transparently and openly available to the public, and the commissioners. Sadly, it is headed in an opposite direction over the past year.

Some Facebook comments on the Shelton Herald’s post, have mentioned that this TueNov14 P&Z meeting is after the municipal election for P&Z commissioners on TueNov7. Keep in mind that the election has no bearing on who will be active commissioners on Nov14, and to my knowledge there is no application received or to be processed regarding this location.

There was additionally a response to the rumors by the P&Z Chair, published in the Shelton Herald online (the print version of the paper is once weekly). which said “the P&Z Commission has not received an application regarding such a proposal or any proposal for that location as yet. If, and when an application is received, it will be put on the Commission’s agenda for discussion at the next Commission meeting“. The Chair also stated “While there are some who have chosen to make this a political issue, I would just like to make my position clear – adult entertainment venues are not the type of business wanted in Shelton, nor one that I would ever personally support“.

Since it was the upcoming election that spurred my journey into separating fact from fiction, I hope I have shown how a proper internet search is a powerful tool, but it should be said that connecting dots can lead to mis-perceptions, so all that I offer in this post is factual research, and the reader can make their own inferences or interpretations. Period. In using the search tool linked to in this paragraph, you can find:

The permittee for “Hush Shelton”, Randi Lee England, made a $100 political campaign donation on 2017Apr25, listed as “Executive Assistant” at “Yellow Rose”.

Robin Cummings, the owner of the LLC (limited liability corporation) which owns the residence listed for the permittee of “Hush Shelton”, made a $100 political campaign donation on 2017Apr25, listed as “retired”.