Nightclub where two were fatally shot last week is closed by Richland County

Black Pearl, a nightclub where two men were shot and killed last week, was closed Friday under a stop work order from Richland County, according to Sheriff Leon Lott.

“This club is operated on blood money,” Sheriff Leon Lott said in announcing the shuttering of the Broad River Road club. “We’re putting a stop to it.”

The order was issued Thursday by the county zoning administrator and served Friday by deputies, Lott said.

If the club reopens, it will be charged under a criminal provision of the county’s zoning laws that ban where strip clubs may locate, the sheriff said.

The next target of the crackdown on clubs that are licensed as bars but are strip clubs will be Mi Casita on Decker Boulevard, Lott said.

Black Pearl has been a point of controversy for law enforcement and residents around the nightclub.

On Dec. 20, Torance Lamar Peoples, 26, and Trevonne Judge, 23, were shot dead outside Black Pearl on Broad River Road. The men, who are brothers, had been celebrating Peoples’birthday, officials have said. They became involved in an exchange of gunfire that followed an argument between two groups outside the club, authorities said.

Lott said an argument over strippers and money prompted the gunfire, and that Peoples and Judge fired the first shots.

Deputies arrested two men on charges unrelated to the killings.

Deputies have answered 32 calls to Black Pearl this year, ranging from larcenies to shootings, officials have said.

This story was originally published December 29, 2017 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Nightclub where two were fatally shot last week is closed by Richland County."