Tobacco Avenue

City, state and federal law-enforcement officers held a rare guy’s night out at Velvet this weekend, enjoying the Shockoe Bottom establishment’s seminude entertainment, cheap dinner buffet and helping themselves to several boxes of belongings that are now formerly owned by the nightclub.

Saying the “fun evening with friends” had been in the works for several months, roughly a dozen Richmond police officers and agents from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, IRS and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives entered the club around 2:45 a.m. on Saturday, roughly an hour after normal business hours.

“It was an awesome, perfect evening.  And something we should have done a long time ago,” said ATF agent Roy Black as he left the South 15th Street club down $150 in singles but up a hand-truck loaded with six computer-processing units.  “We look forward to coming back again, hopefully in the next week.” 

Richmond police chief Rodney Monroe said while the chicken at the buffet was “a bit on the dry side,” he was “very interested” in adding two Hummers and a pair of high-powered searchlights to the force’s collection of equipment.

SEE OUR PREVIOUS VELVET COVERAGE:

The day the Princess went missing

Velvet: a taste for the finer things in life, like naked babes and big trucks and stuff