Since it opened 31 years ago, the Golden Banana, which advertises "exotic dancing and caged dancing," has become part of the lexicon of Route 1 landmarks, along with the Hilltop Steak House and the former Ship restaurant.
The Route 1 strip club has regained its liquor license from the city of Peabody, but still faces a legal challenge as it continues its attempt to reopen.
Shuttered since June 2003 by Peabody officials for code violations, the club has had lease problems since 2002. One year after agreeing to lease the building to Peter Fiumara, owner Francis DiBella of DiBella Realty Trust served Fiumara with eviction papers, stating that Fiumara had built an addition to the Golden Banana without his approval.
Fiumara died in 2005, and last year a district court rejected the eviction notice, allowing his family to keep the lease. This month the Peabody Licensing Board, acting on the recommendation of the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission -- awarded the Golden Banana a new all-alcohol license, with the stipulation that the building would be renovated and brought up to code in six months.
But Mitchel Ross, DiBella's attorney, said he had appealed the district court's decision and expects to be back in court this year. "It was an intentional and serious breach of the lease," Ross said of the addition. "We have said that the lease terminated when Fiumara died."
City Councilor David Gamache also questioned whether the club would ever reopen. "I see litigation going on for years and years and years," he said.
Fiumara also owned the Squire Lounge, a strip club in Revere, which is still run by his family. Plans call for Fiumara's daughter Rosemary to manage the Golden Banana. She declined comment, but James Cipoletta, an attorney for the Fiumara family, said the club would present architectural designs to Peabody officials in the coming weeks.
"It's going to open," said Cipoletta, who could not estimate how much work is needed to be done to bring the building up to code.
In 1977, the state closed the club for 18 days after it determined that the club had tampered with "the composition" of its alcohol.
In 1982, the city tried to close the club after the state created a law that prohibited nude dancing at clubs where alcohol was served. But in 1984, the state Supreme Judicial Court said the law violated freedom of expression, allowing the club to stay open.
"I was all ready to take the liquor out and make it a juice bar," Louis DiBella, then the operator of the Golden Banana, told the Associated Press after the ruling. "Either way the thing went, it would have still been nude."
Over the years, law enforcement authorities have conducted several investigations at the club. Nine years ago, Louis DiBella was fined $30,000 and sentenced to two years of probation for tax evasion.
Since it closed more than three years ago, the club has changed little from the outside. The signs still feature its trademark banana, but are dark at night. Large clumps of asphalt sit in the parking lot next to a trailer.
Ralph Gandolfo, the Peabody building inspector, said he originally closed the building because of safety issues, such as exit doors being barred and the club's lack of fire-retardant draperies.
Ross, the landlord's attorney, added: "There are leaks in the building, and there's mold and mildew."
At The Cabaret, the only adult entertainment club currently open in Peabody, workers declined to comment on the Golden Banana's reopening. At the Squire in Revere, the manager also declined to comment.
But just yards away from the shuttered club, Eric Rouse called the possible reopening a "non issue" at Oakledge Heights, a mobile-home park that abuts the Golden Banana. "I never had a problem when it was open. I never heard a thing."
