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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MARCH 8, 2020
BY LLOYD MITCHELL
Cops are hunting for
the gunman who fatally
shot a man outside a Bedford
Stuyvesant strip club
on March 3.
Police responded to
a call about the shooting
near Amour Cabaret
on Nostrand Avenue between
Herkimer Place
and Herkimer Street at
around 3 am, and found
the wounded victim with
multiple gunshot wounds
to the chest, cops said.
First responders
rushed the 26-year-old
victim to Kings County
Hospital, where doctors
pronounced him dead, according
to authorities.
VITO BRUNO
Continued from page 1
“We became the hottest
club on the planet at
that time,” Bruno said.
Bruno went on to manage
the Roxy, a Manhattan
club where he booked
artists such as Madonna
and Marc Antony, and
founded an entertainment
company that
scored 50 Billboard No.
1 hits called AM/PM Entertainment
Concepts.
But in recent years,
the former nightlife impresario
has traded raging
soirées for the Republican
party, staging
an unsuccessful run for
borough president in
2017, and serving as president
of Brooklyn’s Edmund
G. Seergy Republican
Club. Now, he hopes
to restore “law and order”
to the state senate
district encompassing
Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst,
Marine Park, Gerritsen
Beach, and parts of Gravesend
and Midwood, he
claimed.
“We need to respect
the cops, we need to get
a cap on our real estate
taxes,” he said.
Bruno, who described
himself as a supporter
of President Donald
Trump’s policies, spoke
unfavorably of expanding
bike lanes in his district,
saying that he doesn’t
“believe the people are
for them,” although he
has yet to nail down a policy
position. Bruno also
vowed to roll back bail
reform if elected, claiming
the new law — which
bars judges from setting
cash bail for many nonviolent
misdemeanors and
felonies — has caused an
uptick in crimes.
“Local police say that
crime is up 43%, and they
blame it on bail reform,”
he said.
Bruno’s promise to
crack down on crime,
however, contradicts his
past life as New York’s
clubbing king, when his
“outlaw” parties at AM/
PM lasted hours after the
city’s curfew. In 1983, he
told the New York Times
that he gave hefty cash
Christmas presents to
police offi cers, implying
that he bribed them
to turn the other cheek
to AM/PM’s late-night,
drug-fueled parties.
Bruno would also
fetch drugs for his celebrity
friends, retrieving
cocaine and Quaaludes
for his good friend John
Belushi, according to Bob
Woodward’s 1984 book
“Wired” — a claim that
Bruno now denies.
“I never gave drugs
to anybody,” he told the
Brooklyn Paper, arguing
that his former club life
is water under the bridge.
“Talking about that is a
waste of time. Nobody is
the same person today
that they were 40 years
ago.”
Bruno, who has received
the backing of
Brooklyn’s Republican
party, will face off against
Gounardes in the November
election in what’s
bound to be a nail-biting
race. The swing district,
which voted for Trump
in 2016 and Obama in
2012, elected Gounardes
in the 2018 race with
only 50.9-percent of the
vote, ousting the 14-year
Republican incumbent
Marty Golden.
Cops case the scene on Nostand Avenue. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell Nightlife veteran Vito Bruno Photo by Vito Bruno
Fatal shooting at
Bed- Stuy strip club