The swingers club next door

Local News

A church pastor suspected “some kind of sex club” had opened in an adjacent lot. Here’s what happened next.

The parked cars were Pastor David Townsley’s first clue that something was amiss. They’d arrive around 9 p.m. and linger into the early hours in the suburban Connecticut lot Riverside Baptist Church shares with the office building next door.

“It just seemed unusual, because what business is open during that time?” Townsley explained. “And the only thing I can think of was that it was some kind of sex club or something.”

He said his suspicions were later confirmed when he offered directions to some folks who had gotten lost on their way to naked karaoke — one of the offerings at the newly opened swingers club next door.

Billing itself as “the ultimate seductive escape,” the Wicked Fun Club quietly set up shop last November in Plymouth’s Terryville neighborhood, about 20 miles west of Hartford. Months later, town officials are trying to give the members-only social club the boot.

The Plymouth Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday denied Wicked Fun Club owner Steve Gagne’s appeal of a March cease-and-desist letter that branded his club an adult-use business and ordered him to shut it down. Under local zoning, businesses aimed at “adult” purposes — for example, an erotic bookstore or pornographic theater — aren’t allowed within 1,000 feet of schools or churches. 

By Townsley’s estimate, Riverside Baptist Church and the Wicked Fun Club are only about 30 feet apart. He said he called local police to ask them to look into the club, though they ultimately found no criminal activity. 

“It’s not a typical story,” the pastor acknowledged. “People assume … there’s a, you know, nice businessman who wants to start an adult club in town, and the mean church is saying, ‘No, no, we don’t want it,’ even though he’s doing everything right and following the town. And that’s completely the wrong story here.”

Gagne begs to differ. 

“We’re just not adult-use; we’re a private, members-only social club,” he argued. “The State of Connecticut doesn’t regulate social clubs like they would regulate a regular, open-to-the-public business. We have certain rights that we’re protected by.”

What is the Wicked Fun Club?

Allowing “on-premise[s] play” for couples and singletons alike, the club advertises a variety of themed events that range from a murder mystery party to a Western-themed gathering that calls for “cowgirl/boy hats & boots… nothing else.” 

Gagne described the club’s members as “decent human beings who live a vanilla lifestyle outside the [swingers] ‘Lifestyle’ but have their fun on weekends.” According to Gagne, the Wicked Fun Club has more than 200 members who range in age from 26 to 60. Among their ranks are attorneys, doctors, business owners, and people who work in government and law enforcement, he said.

The club’s website stipulates attendees must be 21 or older to enter, and new or renewing members are required to show a valid photo ID. Fees range from $19.95 for a one-month membership for couples and single women to $199.95 for a one-year membership for single men.

There’s also a dress code prescribing “sexy club wear” for women — “the tighter and shorter, the better” — and collared shirts and dress shoes for men. 

“It’s not your typical club,” Gagne explained. “When you think club, you’re thinking nightclub, loud music, dancing, and all that stuff. We’re not like that. I wanted to be something different.”

The Wicked Fun Club offers a more low-key lounge where members can talk and get to know each other, plus workshops where attendees can “work out relationship stuff,” he explained. 

“And then throughout the evening, you know, we have space if people want to break off and go do their own thing,” Gagne said, adding, “Whatever happens behind closed doors is no different than [in] houses behind the church. Whatever they do is no one’s business; they’re not breaking any law.”

Pastor says club debacle exposed statewide ‘loophole’

The question of zoning is a murkier one. Aside from the club’s proximity to the church, the March 28 cease-and-desist letter noted adult-use businesses are not allowed within the town’s C-1 General Commercial District, nor can they abut a residential zone, as the Wicked Fun Club does. Members of Riverside Baptist Church erupted in applause Tuesday when Plymouth’s ZBA upheld those findings and denied Gagne’s appeal, according to local newspaper The Bristol Press. 

Gagne alleged the ZBA decision was “predetermined” and noted that of the 100 or so people who showed up to the meeting, only nine were there to support the Wicked Fun Club.

“Everybody else were on the Christian right, and it was just mob rule,” he asserted. “It was an angry display of the most un-Christianlike behavior I have ever seen — publicly and personally — in my life.”

While Townsley also described the meeting as “very, very tense,” he had a different takeaway.

“[Gagne] claims it was just this Bible-thumping mob that was mean to him and that sort of thing,” he fired back. “But, you know, in reality this was the town finally … saying, ‘We’re not going for this. Get out of town; we don’t want this in our town.’” 

He further alleged Gagne has used “threatening and kind of Mafia-type tactics” in his dealings with the community, noting the club owner has suggested the initial cease-and-desist letter could have been the result of a personal friendship between Townsley and Plymouth Mayor Joseph Kilduff. 

“I don’t even know the mayor,” Townsley clarified. He also said the recent debacle has exposed a practical “loophole” in the general lack of state oversight for businesses like the Wicked Fun Club. 

“The health department should 100% be involved in this,” Townsley opined.

When it comes to safeguards against potential disease transmission or underage patrons, “it’s just based on the owner’s word that, ‘Oh, don’t worry. We would never let anything happen like that,’” he added. “And yet we don’t do that with any other business.”

Townsley asserted Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection should have specific licensing for adult businesses, and he said he’s contacted his state lawmakers in hopes of getting the ball rolling. 

“Every town could approve or disapprove whatever they want,” he explained. “It wouldn’t change what’s allowed; it would just provide the oversight and some enforcement.”

‘We were good neighbors’

Following Tuesday’s ZBA meeting, Gagne said he had trouble sleeping and needed a couple of days to digest some of the vitriol he’d heard. 

“I’ve had a lot of anger built up because of this. This is an assault on my club, on my members, on my First Amendment rights,” he said. “Just because they don’t like what we do, they think they have a right to overrule us and go above and beyond the rule of law to kick us out.”

The Wicked Fun Club is closed for now, though Gagne said he plans to take Plymouth to state court to appeal the decision and ask for a stay that would allow the club to reopen. Gagne also intends to sue the town in federal court “for violating our constitutional civil rights, for harassment, for defamation, and for loss of income for the club.”

“We’re not sure how long that’s going to take, or how long we’ll be down,” he added. “We’re also, at the same time, looking for alternative venues for us to move to if we have to.”

Reached for comment, Kilduff, Plymouth’s mayor, affirmed Tuesday’s vote. 

“I agree with the decision that the ZBA made in denying their appeal,” he said in an emailed statement. “If Mr. Gagne decides to pursue this matter further, we will defend that decision.” 

Gagne was adamant that the Wicked Fun Club has legal precedent on its side, explaining he and his wife did their due diligence and studied Plymouth’s zoning when they were scouting locations. 

“Moving into that space, being next to a church, I knew the sensitivity of the situation,” Gagne said. “I never wanted to be outed. I wanted our club to be private, and it was private until the pastor next door decided to snoop around and have the police investigate us. We were good neighbors; we’re still good neighbors.”

Townsley, for his part, dismissed the allegations of “snooping.” 

“All I have to do is look out the window and count the cars,” he said. “It’s not like people are, like, Sherlock Holmes-ing around the parking lot or something.”