Padlock

I saw a blurb in a fitness magazine about gym padlocks that don't have a number combination and also don't require a key. Instead they have letter combinations so you can set a word as your code. Do you know where I can buy something like this, or what they're called? A brilliant idea. Why didn't we think of this? After all, words like "speed" and "match" sure are easier to remember than 17-2-33. You can find locks similar to the one you describe at Wordlock.com or at some Staples stores.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is seeking to padlock Suite Ultralounge, a troubled nightclub in the basement of the historic Belvedere Hotel, calling it a public nuisance and linking it to a spate of shootings and other crime over the past year. "The violence that took place is no secret to anybody," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "It's been on our naughty list for some time." The move comes two months after a Circuit Court judge overturned a liquor board decision from last year ordering the club's license revoked, saying newly devised rules governing so-called bottle clubs, in which patrons bring their own alcohol, needed to be clarified and revised.

Violence linked to the Suite Ultralounge, in the basement of the historic Belvedere Hotel, has made the business a public nuisance, a Baltimore administrative hearing officer found Monday. That clears the way for police to padlock the club for up to a year. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said no action will be taken until Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has an opportunity to read the hearing examiner's written decision, which should occur "within a week." As an alternative, Guglielmi said, the law provides an option for the club's owners to submit a proposed "public safety plan."

The Black Hole Rock Club in Dundalk is closed, for now. The manager was arrested and charged with selling drugs to customers. Inspectors condemned the barnlike structure and slapped notices on all the doors: "This building is unsafe. " Baltimore County Police Chief James W. Johnson wants to go further - padlocking the doors to ensure that the club stays closed for up to one year. The county's "padlock law" gives the police extraordinary power in certain cases to lock the doors of an establishment, though the tactic has not been used there in at least 15 years.

NEW YORK -- Making good on long-standing promises to crack down on the city's sex industry, police officers raided three topless clubs late Friday, and building inspectors shut them down.Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced yesterday that the city had padlocked the clubs in the first of a wave of closings aimed at wiping out more than two-thirds of the city's sex shops and clubs over the next year.Uniformed officers burst into the three clubs and, with dancers gyrating and patrons ogling, shouted, "Police!

It's 3 p.m. at Shirley's Honey Hole, a neighborhood bar in East Baltimore, and behind a locked door about 10 men - mostly retirees, all in their 60s and 70s - are sipping Budweisers, Coronas and mixed drinks in red plastic cups, a bottle of fruit juice standing by for refills. Behind the bar are family pictures, white Christmas lights - and a letter from the Baltimore Police Department notifying 60-year-old owner Shirley Barner of the department's intention to shut the business down. Police stipulated three incidents from June, including a shooting on the street outside that left five people injured and one dead, and drugs recovered from people inside and outside the bar. On Friday, Barner's bar became the latest city business that police have identified in recent months as a public nuisance, initiating proceedings to padlock the business until the owners can come up with a safety plan deemed suitable by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. And like the business owners before her, Barner, an East Baltimore bar owner for 30 years, says police are blaming her for something over which she has no control.

The owners and operators of Club 410 in Northeast Baltimore urged police Thursday not to shut down their Northeast Baltimore club, saying that they have strict security procedures and that violence outside or sometimes blocks away was out of their control. The club, in the 4500 block of Belair Road, was the subject of the most recent "padlock hearing" by the Baltimore Police Department, which has been seeking to crack down on establishments it believes harbor crime and violence. Manager Tomeka Harris, a law student who represented the club at a hearing at police headquarters, said that of five incidents cited by police, only one took place inside the club, and it was handled by security.

POLICE LOG* Clarksville: 6300 block of Ten Oaks Road: Someone pried a padlock on an employee lounge at Antwerpen Toyota between Wednesday and Thursday. Change was stolen from a soft-drink machine.

Police logKings Contrivance: 6800 Greenleigh Drive: On Saturday evening, a padlock was cut from the Micklos Painting gate leading to the racquetball courts. Caulk guns and latex caulk were taken.Pub Date: 11/06/96

Wanda lifts a swollen hand to her face, scratches her nose and tells the eternal lie about quitting the heroin habit.Her eyelids are at half-mast, and her voice is the low grumble of the junkie as she talks about life on the street in the white glow of the Marylander Motel sign on Pulaski Highway."