Coronavirus: Police shut down 'illegal nightclub' discovered during San Francisco lockdown

San Francisco officials found speakeasy after surveillance video showed dozens of people entering and exiting in early hours

San Francisco police have shuttered an “underground nightclub” operating in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic after city officials had ordered the closures of bars and nightclubs to curb the spread of the virus.

Time-lapse surveillance video showed more than “150 people entering and exiting” a stout pink warehouse over a few nights earlier this month, with 20 to 30 cars parked near the front of the building, according to police.

Police later seized “DJ equipment, two fog machines, nine gambling machines with $670 in cash inside, two pool tables, bins of liquor, cases of beer, bar furniture” and other items, according to a statement from city official Dennis Herrera.

The office had secured a warrant to shut down the club on 10 April for allegedly violating a March stay-at-home order in the county that was later issued statewide. It’s the first such warrant issued by San Francisco officials following the quarantine.

Mr Herrera said: “This pandemic is deadly serious. People need to treat it that way ... Education is always the first step, but willfully ignoring health orders is not acceptable. We are going to use every tool at our disposal, including these types of warrants, to protect public health during this pandemic.”

The club, which allegedly does not possess a nightclub license, was open from 2 am to 6 am.

Mr Herrera added that “cramming dozens of people into an illegal club during this outbreak is like dropping a lit match in the woods during fire season. Who knows how far the damage will spread? It’s the epitome of irresponsibility”.

San Francisco police chief William Scott said the operators of the club “senselessly put lives at risk in a time when our city is doing everything within our means to slow the spread of this pandemic and safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public”.

According to court documents, the building’s tenant, Bay Area Pinnacle Cleaning, was using the building as storage for his janitorial company but had turned the building to the club’s operators as an after-hours club some time earlier this year.

During a stakeout on 8 April, a city’s attorney’s office investigator “observed multiple cars coming and going from the property, and groups of people not practising social distancing” while “loud music could be heard emanating from inside”.

Authorities also reported that “strobe lights were observed within the building when the door was opened” and “security guards were also seen frisking” people entering the club