NEW YORK (AP) – The end may be near for Scores, the legendary strip club that has attracted celebrities while withstanding Mafia infiltration, FBI raids and ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s crusade against smut.

After 17 years of notoriety, the owners are facing an uphill battle to keep New York state from stripping the club of its liquor license.

In a city that waffles between celebrating its seedy past and being relieved that its era of pimps and peep shows is over, the demise of the East Side club would likely generate mixed feelings.

“In some ways, it’s kind of like an institution in New York, so it would be sad if it closed down, I guess,” said Ruth Fowler, a former dancer at the club’s satellite venue, Scores West, and author of “No Man’s Land,” a memoir about her days on the gentlemen’s club scene.

On many nights, she said, Scores had the feel of an exclusive club. High rolling patrons including A-list athletes dropped thousands of dollars. Gossip columnists reported on sightings of stars from Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe to Lindsay Lohan and Carson Daly.

“On the other hand,” Fowler said, “I hate the place.”

Women at the club were often treated like “absolute dirt” by managers, and prostitution was encouraged, she said.

State authorities this year revoked the liquor license for Scores West, in Chelsea, after a January police raid led to prostitution charges against several dancers. That nightspot closed last spring.

Now the state wants to extend that revocation to the original Scores on Manhattan’s East Side. The state liquor board rarely, if ever, allows an owner with a yanked license to continue operating a second establishment.

Lawyers for the club did not respond to calls seeking comment this past week. Elda Auerbach, a Scores publicist and a director of the Scores Holding Company, said the owners would have no public comment until the dispute with the New York State Liquor Authority was finished.

A hearing is expected later this month.

Scores opened in 1991 after founder Michael Blutrich agreed to pay a “tax” to Gambino crime family associates.

Business boomed, in part to expert promotion from publicist Lonnie Hanover and near-weekly adulation from the club’s biggest fan, radio jock Howard Stern.

“It’s a winning formula,” Hanover told The New York Times in 1998. “Men want big juicy steaks, a big thick cigar and the current sports contests. They want to kick back and look at gorgeous women … It is simply a man’s paradise.”

Federal prosecutors said later that the mafia was one of the primary beneficiaries, taking kickbacks from the staff, getting a piece of the profits from the coat check room and valet service, and hand-picking the security staff.

A waiter and a bouncer were killed during an after-hours brawl in 1996. Two patrons were later convicted.

In 1996, Blutrich and partner Lyle Pfeffer were charged with embezzling money from an unrelated insurance business in Florida. In an attempt to save themselves, they agreed to wear hidden FBI microphones during meetings with suspected mobsters. The evidence they gathered was a factor in the racketeering indictment that sent reputed Gambino boss John “Junior” Gotti to prison in 1999.

Blutrich and Pfeffer entered the federal witness protection program and are now serving prison terms of nearly 20 years in connection with the Florida fraud case.

Scores passed to a new owner, barely avoided being shut down by Giuliani’s administration, then was purchased in 2002 by a group that included current owners Harvey Osher and Richard Goldring.

They set about turning Scores into a national brand, opening Scores West in 2004 and licensing the Scores name to clubs in Las Vegas, Baltimore, Chicago and New Orleans.

Still, problems persisted at the original club. A number of patrons filed lawsuits and complaints alleging that their credit cards had been overcharged, sometimes for as much as $240,000 for a single night.

Goldring and Osher were indicted in 2006 on charges that they falsified tax returns and business records. Goldring pleaded guilty to falsifying a state tax form and got five years probation; Osher got four weekends in jail.

Then came the January police raid at Scores West that led to the current licensing dispute.

Some clubs have dropped out of the national licensing deals and others have been sold.

In court, Scores’ owners and managers have denied any knowledge of prostitution at Scores West and have said they were the victim of overzealous detectives.

Fowler, who says she was fired from Scores West in 2005 after throwing a drink in a rude customer’s face, and has filed a sexual harassment suit against the club, said she finds those denials hard to believe.

“Everyone knew what was going on,” she said. “It just kind of shows how careless and how arrogant they came to be. It’s like they had this fantasy that they weren’t living in the real world and that the rules didn’t apply to them.”

AP-ES-09-06-08 1421EDT