FREDONIA — In the aftermath of a Fredonia nude dancing club’s shutdown, Mayor Douglas Essek took a bit of a victory lap this week.

He lauded the apparent demise of the Water Street establishment, and thanked people involved in its closure, during his report time at a Board of Trustees meeting.

“I’m very happy that finally we have eliminated an eyesore in our village that has brought in bad things with it throughout the years,” he said.

The trustees passed a measure to keep the club from reopening during a special meeting July 6. Formerly Club 35 and Lookers, it was most recently Rebelz Gentlemen’s Club.

Essek said the effort to shut down the club started after he did a September 2021 nighttime police car ridealong with former Sgt. Brian Johnson.

“There’s a couple businesses that I would like to eradicate from our village because they bring nothing in but trouble,” Essek said then, reporting on the ride along at a trustees meeting. “It’s very disturbing to see, after midnight, places that you walk during the day, that are very desirable… (but at) 2, 3, 4 in the morning, you would feel more comfortable with a police officer being armed and yourself being armed, if need be.”

On Monday, the mayor stated, “A lot of people in the public and the press lambasted me for saying that heaven forbid, our village is not the best thing sometimes after midnight. Well, that one business there created a lot of issues, and fortunately, it’s gone.”

Essek thanked “the people that, during the whole process here, made this come to fruition.” He listed Johnson, former police chief Phillip Maslak, current police chief David Price, former village attorney Charlie Roberts and current attorney Mark Guglielmi.

Trustee James Lynden sought to clarify how the village was able to shut down the strip joint.

“The reason that it cannot proceed is that it’s been out of operation for the period of time that was required for the coding department to end that type of business, according to the laws of the village,” he said. “Just to be clear (so) people understand that it was definitely the lapse of doing business that made it possible.”