New Jersey is putting an end to the Bing. The state has ordered the Satin Dolls club—the real-life location of Tony Sopranos’s fictional Bada Bing! strip club—to close up shop this month because of “continued violation of state laws,” USA Today reports.
According to a statement from New Jersey attorney general Christopher Porrino, the go-go bar’s owners have been under investigation for the past six years for allegedly “[failing] to account for large amounts of cash flowing in and out of the businesses.” And, in a very Sopranos move, Porrino claims that one of the owners, Anthony Cardinalle—a convicted racketeer with ties to organized crime—has also been illegally running the place despite being banned from doing so.
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Now, Satin Dolls and another Cardinalle-owned club in Secaucus must end their live dancing by December 17 and either sell or trade their liquor licenses by early next year.
“The Cardinalles may have wanted to keep the business in the family, but that’s not how it works. Their continued flouting of alcoholic beverage control laws cannot and will not be tolerated,” Porrino said in the statement.
“Illegal activity was glorified at the Bada Bing in the fictional world of Tony Soprano, but it has no place in modern-day New Jersey,” he continued. “It’s time to shut it down.”
Satin Dolls has been a go-to destination for fans of The Sopranos in the years since the show went off the air in 2007, and when Sopranos star James Gandolfini passed away in 2013, the club put together a makeshift shrine to the actor. It was the site of some of the HBO show’s most memorable moments, like when Chris drunkenly threatened Tony with a gun or that time Ralph went a little overboard with his love for the movie Gladiator.
The Route 17 club still has a week or so to go before it has to end its operations, so if you hurry you’ll still have a chance to go pose for a nice photo at the Bing pretending to hit your friend in the head with a phone or something.
