![]() The lawsuit filed April 13 in Wisconsin federal court by Camelot Banquet Rooms, which owns and operates the Silk Exotic Gentlemen’s Club in Milwaukee, may be even more relevant for the Admiral. Two days later, the appellate ruling opened the door to a PPP loan for the DV Diamond Club and other adult nightclubs. The SBA filed an appeal with the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati on May 13. “Simply put, Congress did not pick winners and losers in the PPP.” ![]() “While Congress may once have been willing to permit the SBA to exclude these businesses from its lending programs, that willingness evaporated when the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed the economy and threw tens of millions of Americans out of work,” the Michigan judge ruled. The decision noted that Congress expanded the PPP to include other previously ineligible businesses, such as nonprofit organizations and small casinos. On May 11, a Michigan federal court ruled that the DV Diamond Club of Flint could not be denied a PPP loan based on the prurient sexual nature provisions of the original SBA ineligibility rule, which went into effect in 1996. While there may still be plenty of money to go around, that doesn’t diminish the urgency of the lawsuits brought against the SBA by adult nightclubs, Lirot said. is among the companies that have returned funds. In fact, the amount of available PPP funding has increased in the last week, according to the SBA, as some businesses returned the money under pressure from the government, which said it would not forgive the loans if companies had access to alternative sources of capital. The funding also isn’t being depleted as quickly, with nearly $147 billion left as of Wednesday. ![]() The $310 billion second round of PPP, which began April 27, has been more inclusive, with banks and the SBA pushing out loans to smaller businesses. The initial $349 billion in funding ran out in less than two weeks, with many smaller businesses shut out, as banks allegedly prioritized larger clients ahead of mom-and-pop stores. Launched April 3, the federal paycheck program offers businesses with fewer than 500 employees forgivable loans of up to $10 million to cover eight weeks of payroll. The application has been held up since then, pending an agency ruling on eligibility, the lawsuit alleges. The Admiral’s nearly $407,000 PPP loan application covering 42 employees was submitted to the SBA on April 15, according to the lawsuit. The Admiral has been closed since March 15, as the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s stay-at-home order shuttered nonessential businesses across Illinois. “The SBA will follow what the court rules,” Andrea Roebker, a spokeswoman for the SBA’s Great Lakes Region, said Wednesday.īoth decisions may bode well for the Admiral’s lawsuit. In both cases, the SBA had sought to put a hold on the lower court rulings while pursuing the appeals. Last week, the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati issued a similar order in a case involving a Flint, Michigan, adult nightclub, which also sued the SBA to become eligible for a PPP loan. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago handed the adult nightclubs a major victory, refusing to block a Wisconsin federal court decision that the SBA couldn’t deny a PPP loan to a Milwaukee gentlemen’s club based solely on the prurient ineligibility standard. “This a guy that sweeps the floor that’s not getting a paycheck issue.” ![]() “This is not an adult entertainment issue,” said Luke Lirot, a Florida attorney representing the Admiral Theater in the lawsuit, which was filed May 8 in Chicago federal court. Now it’s navigating a legal challenge from adult nightclubs including Chicago’s Admiral Theatre alleging the Small Business Administration shut them out of PPP funding.Īt issue is a long-standing SBA restriction on loans to businesses that present live performances of a “prurient sexual nature.” Lawsuits brought by adult clubs in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan argue they should be eligible for federal emergency relief, just like any other small business. The federal Payroll Protection Program has hit a few bumps in the road since its rollout last month, from blowback over alleged preferential treatment for larger businesses to growing concern over loan forgiveness requirements. ![]()
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