A 25-year-old employee of a gay business on Cheshire Bridge Road was threatened with a knife and robbed by three people – including one dressed in drag – as he walked to a MARTA station late at night.
The employee recently started working at Club Eros, a private social club for gay men. The business is on Faulkner Road just off Cheshire Bridge that's also near a handful of gay nightlife spots. After finishing his shift, the employee headed on foot to the Lindbergh Center MARTA Station just before 1 a.m. on Aug. 27.
That's when trouble found him, according to an Atlanta police incident report.
As the man passed Club Onyx, he told police he was going to cross Cheshire Bridge to use the restroom. But he was interrupted by a trio of people that approached him. He described the group as “one tall black male wearing all black, one short black male, and one black male dressed as a female,” according to the incident report.
“He stated that the short black male lift [sic] his shirt and showed him a handle which he thinks was a knife.”
The tall man then said the victim owed him money and grabbed him. He reached into a pocket on the victim's pants and snatched his Samsung phone and $40 in cash. The trio of robbers then fled on foot toward Piedmont Road.
The victim was uninjured during the incident, according to the incident report.
Why not call Uber? That ride might not go so well. And a patron of a Cheshire gay bar was robbed at gunpoint by someone riding shotgun in an Uber last December. A trio of masked men pulled guns and robbed a group of gay men outside several Midtown gay bars in early July.
Club Eros is one of several sex shops and infamous gloryholes along Cheshire Bridge. It sits in a warehouse district on Faulkner that includes other LGBT businesses. The property has a new owner as redevelopment puts a squeeze on the area. But the LGBT businesses are safe – for now.
