Before the shooting, it was a second-rate men’s club, an off-the-beaten-path dive in Jamaica below an elevated train and near a shop selling live chickens. And yet, a reporter’s visit last week suggested that 2006 may have been the club’s heyday. Today, it smells bad inside, like a person who needs a bath.  But for those who are there day in and day out, it is more like a cozy neighborhood pub than a strip club. It is a place where a young woman can work to put herself through college, where dancers who are competing for every dollar nonetheless develop an us-against-them camaraderie. It is like a family, said Harold James, who used to visit three times a week — a family that frisks its visitors, but a family nonetheless.  The night of Mr. Bell’s party was like most any other at Club Kalua, employees said. A doorman patted everyone down, from shoulders to ankles. Even Mr. James, 37, said he was frisked from time to time, although just for show, “If there’s a crowd outside.”  Once inside, the music was deafening. There were a couple of arcade games opposite the main stage, an A.T.M. in the back that charged a $5 service fee and dancers who, when they weren’t dancing, were prowling the floor, flirting with customers and hustling the valuable champagne drinks. For every $20 glass of champagne sold, the dancer pocketed $10, according to the testimony of one dancer, Marseilles Payne. At the Kalua, Ms. Payne was known by her stage name, Trini, which is short for her family’s homeland in Trinidad.  “Everybody was making money,” she said of the night of Mr. Bell’s bachelor party. “Everybody was having fun.”  One of Mr. Bell’s friends, Larenzo Kinred, said, “I saw a woman throw a drink at a man.” And later, he said, “A female had come up to me, crying, talking about how she had just gotten smacked.”  Ms. Payne recalled the confrontation that night in the dressing room between a dancer, Lizette, and her boyfriend. “They started arguing and Lizette got up and smacked him,” she said. He returned the blow: “Back of the hand,” she said. “They were tussling.” Ms. Payne and another dancer jumped between them, pushed the man out and slammed the door.  A ramp in the rear led to a small so-called V.I.P. area, which Mr. Bell and his friends visited after ordering Long Island iced teas. The bartender, Emilcen Angulo, 53, who has worked there for four years and has been known to have a customer’s refill ready before it is ordered, testified that she still remembered Mr. Bell’s $5 tip.  Another bartender, Tina O’Neale, 25, testified that one of Mr. Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman, ordered a glass of Hennessy cognac and bought her a shot of tequila, and asked her out. “He was like, ‘Are you going to give me an answer before you leave?’ ” she told a grand jury last year in testimony released last week.  Seeing friends was more important than seeing the women, said Mr. James, the regular who was known by his nickname, Bones. “I know all the girls,” he said. “It’s not like I’m seeing something spectacular.”  The feeling was mutual. “Bones was Bones,” Ms. Payne testified. “If he liked you, he’d tip you a couple of dollars. Other than that, he was just there to talk, to run his mouth.”  The club was the latest sex-oriented operation in Jamaica closely associated with Martina and Roger Duran, a mother and son who have managed to remain in business for nearly a decade despite repeated raids by police and attempts by the city and state officials to shut them down, according to a review of court records and enforcement actions conducted by The New York Times in December 2006.  There have been no arrests at the club since Mr. Bell’s shooting, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. The State Liquor Authority has two cases pending against the club, one for more than two years, that could lead to the revocation of its liquor license, possibly this month.  One case cites a failure to include Ms. Duran on the license application, the other is a 2005 prostitution charge. An administrative law judge issued findings in both cases on Feb. 12, said William Crowley, a spokesman for the Liquor Authority, who said that the findings will not be made public until they are finalized.  The club has 20 days to review the findings before a final order is issued. The authority’s board is expected to issue its final order at a meeting on March 20, Mr. Crowley said.  While the club is still open, a visit on Thursday night suggested that the last year had not been kind.  The club seemed decorated to fit any occasion, with Christmas lights and snowflakes in one area, and “Happy Birthday” and sagging Valentine’s Day balloons in another. A sign behind the bar reminded bartenders that “hair and nails must be done.” A disk jockey repeatedly told customers that they must have a drink in their hands at all times. That would not have been many drinks: The dozen or so dancers outnumbered the men they were dancing for.  The dancers clung to the men, offering back rubs and lap dances and asking for champagne. They wore bikinis, and did not strip on stage, which employees said had long been the case even though since the shooting and during the trial it had often been described as a strip club. One dancer who was flirting with customers paused to pay a Chinese food deliveryman for her vegetable lo mein, which she ate by herself in the V.I.P. area.  Employees said business has slowed since the shooting. The weekends are sometimes busy, they said, but not always.  Even Mr. James, who last year told the grand jury, “This is my family in here,” testified that he hardly went in the club anymore.  “Maybe once in a blue moon,” he said.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trial’s Spotlight Finds a Shadowy Place. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The criminal trial of three detectives charged in the killing of Sean Bell in a fusillade of 50 bullets has brought new attention to Club Kalua, where he was shot.