The owner of the building on the corner of Locust and 6th streets, said to house a “swingers club,” will be issued a list of building code violations this week after city officials inspected the premises.

DeKalb plans examiner Michelle Noyes said many of the violations to be issued are because a majority of the electrical and plumbing work at the club was performed without building permits. Noyes said that the building’s owner, Stephen Beckler, of Clare has cooperated with city officials throughout the inspection process but has declined to identify the tenants who rent from him at that location.

The glass door of the club still displays the logo of the Elk’s Lodge that previously used the building. Noyes said it still looks like a fraternal order meeting place, complete with shag carpeting, a fireplace and dance floor. She added that the back of the building was sub-divided into several small rooms furnished with mattresses.

Community development director Paul Rasmussen said “mattress rooms” are filled with possible fire combustibles and expressed his concern to officials. He said he first learned about the club two to three months ago, after an electrician who did work there noticed a lot of building code violations.

“My sole interest in the matter is to bring the building up to code,” he said.

Rasmussen, who has made enforcing building codes in new and old DeKalb constructions a priority since he started the position a year ago, said the zoning is acceptable for the building and nothing prohibits the club from operating unless there are overnight visitors, in which a hotel permit would be needed.

In what some are calling a “porn sprawl” as adult businesses spread to suburban areas, the club has operated at the location for three years, according to the club’s Web site, www.privateaffairs.org.

The Web site, advertising itself as the Northern Illinois Swingers Club, says it’s a couples-only club that requires a couple orientation before attending the club. The cost per couple is $50, with an annual $10 membership fee after the third visit. Parties are held every Saturday night.

Participants must be older than 21 and can bring alcohol to the building. The Web site also says the owners “have 5,000 square feet to play in, a bar, dance floor with DJ, shower room, back play rooms, jacuzzi and more.”

Some affiliates of other “swingers clubs” have said local governments use building code violations and zoning laws as an excuse to control adult businesses.

“We’re not here to do any moral judging,” Noyes said. “It is legal as long as no one is spending the night.”

The swingers club has done nothing to attract attention until recently.

Dan Kennedy, a Lee Auto Parts employee located across from the club, said he never noticed anything unusual going on there and didn’t know about the nature of the club until he read it in a local newspaper.

“I found it as a shock,” he said.

According to an interview posted on the club’s Web site, the owners of the site, who go by the aliases of Rick and Wendy, said they chose DeKalb as the location for their club because of its central location and its easy access from Interstate 88.

After a story ran in the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, DeKalb Police Chief Bill Feithen said complaints about the club have not surfaced.