Pair Charged in Plot to Blow Up Rival Nightclub

The owner of an Anaheim nightclub and his head bouncer were arrested Wednesday in connection with a plot to blow up a competitor’s cabaret across town, federal authorities said.

Tsu E. Peng, 28, who owns the Palace nightclub, and Harold M. Blaich Jr., 47, the establishment’s security director, were arrested on felony conspiracy charges alleging that they planned to destroy the Ritz nightclub at 507 S. Brookhurst St.

“It’s our belief that they were trying to eliminate their competition,” said FBI Special Agent Wylie B. Cox, who is based in Santa Ana. “They thought by eliminating the Ritz they would pick up its clientele.”

According to an affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday, Peng and Blaich allegedly devised the scheme to help Peng’s financially troubled club at 3150 W. Lincoln Blvd. The Ritz and Palace cater to Vietnamese.

FBI agents said they were tipped to the alleged plot on Sept. 28 when a confidential informant was contacted by Blaich, who asked whether the informant knew anything about explosives.

“Blaich then told the source that the Ritz nightclub was ‘killing’ his business at the Palace nightclub and that he needed someone to ‘take it out,’ i.e. ‘blow it up,’ ” the affidavit states.

The informant allegedly told Blaich that he knew somebody who might do the job. According to the affidavit, Blaich then told the informant that Peng “would pay the bomber $500 as a down payment and $1,000 after the job was completed.”

Cox said the informant notified the FBI after a meeting with Blaich.

Court documents state that several days later the informant, wearing a tape recorder, met with Peng at a doughnut shop near the Palace and confirmed the arrangement with the owner.

“During the meeting, Peng (said) the owner of the Ritz had been causing trouble for (his) nightclub for a long time and was stealing his clientele,” the affidavit states.

In a subsequent phone conversation with the informant, Blaich was heard saying that he didn’t care “if the Ritz was bombed, burned or both so long as it was disabled from opening for two or three years,” the court papers stated.

In addition, Blaich allegedly told the informant that the Palace’s employees would get raises if the club gained the Ritz’s business.

The affidavit states that Peng subsequently gave the informant $500 on Oct. 7 during a meeting at the Palace. Cox said the money was the down payment to destroy the Ritz.

Wednesday, FBI agents, Anaheim police, sheriff’s deputies and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested Peng at the club and Blaich at his home in Midway City.

The proprietors of the Ritz could not be reached for comment.

Peng is being held on $100,000 bail and Blaich on $50,000 bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.