For club owners and nightlife denizens, it is just part of the strange byzantine nature of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania liquor licensing that, if you wanna stay open late, the only way it’s going to happen is if you’ve got some kind of ancient non-for-profit shell organization — a brotherhood society, a longstanding ethnicity-based community group — under which you can rage until (nearly) the dawn’s early light. This is the reason, say, Hollertronix was able to thrive at the Ukie Club for a number of years, and it’s also the loophole that has kept the R.U.B.A. in NoLibs a late-night Sunday staple since you were in short pants. And an association like this is also what’s kept the Palmer Social Club open afterhours for years now — or rather, until now. For a time, the Palmer was one of Philly’s premier afterhours destinations — and for a while, the corner it stands on was the place to get shot, until all of that seemed to move to Old City — but presently, the Palmer and its manager, Michael Weiss, have been indicted for federal income tax fraud by filing false tax returns as a nonprofit corporation. If indeed the accused are guilty of what the Feds say they are, it would mean that they took that Philly afterhours loophole — an association with a non-profit — and tried to apply it to their tax filings. And the penalties are steep: If convicted, maximum fine for the Palmer itself would be $350,000, and Weiss could face a nine year term of imprisonment, a fine of up to $750,000, and two years of supervised release.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:20 pm.