Venerable sex club still looking for a new home

"Did you know that a large sex club is opening in your neighborhood?" declared an anonymously authored flier that circulated in the blocks around 44 Gough St. early last month. The flier and the North Mission residents behind it were protesting the relocation of the Power Exchange, a sex club with a 13-year history in the area, which was set to reopen April 2 after shutting its old location a couple of blocks away on Otis Street in November.

Mike Bertino

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• Christine Haw
• Tom Hovorka
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Now, six weeks later, the unhappy locals have succeeded. The Power Exchange never opened its doors on Gough. In fact, the club's owner, Michael Powers, has been forced to leave the building entirely.

Residents were relieved when Power Exchange shut down six months ago after the landlord filed for bankruptcy. Neighbors told Mission Loc@l, a neighborhood Web site, about finding condoms on the street and seeing people having sex outside the three-floor venue, among other things.

So when residents heard Powers was set to do business in an office building that had once housed the city's human resources department, they jumped into action, even picketing in front of another property managed by Tom Hovorka, Powers' new landlord, with signs that read, "Tom Hovorka rents to SEX CLUB with long history of neglect in my neighborhood."

Club critics also notified city officials like Christine Haw, a Planning Department supervisor, that Powers didn't have the right permits to turn the space into a club. (It had previously been zoned for daytime business use.) Neighborhood reps didn't return calls requesting comment, but Haw — who confirmed that Powers "didn't really have any permits at all" — says it was "definitely not a moral issue" driving the opposition. She says that while clubs like Eros have avoided conflict with neighbors and the city, Power Exchange attracted a steady stream of noise, litter, and crime complaints over the years. "We're not saying you can't have a sex club in the neighborhood," she says. "People just want a well-run sex club."

Powers declined to comment for this story, but on the Power Exchange's answering machine, he promises that the club will be back up and running in a month — though Haw has seen no evidence Powers has found another building in the area. Club loyalists may not want to get their hopes up too much: Last week, a "closing night club" at 44 Gough gave away the furniture for free on Craigslist.