Seungri’s Hongdae Club That Was Illegally Evading Taxes Was Actually Owned By Yang Hyun Suk

BIGBANG‘s Seungri is known to be running a club called Love Signal in Hongdae as he has previously posted this information on Instagram. The club’s name, which was called Club X from December 2017 to August 2018, was later changed to Love Signal.

“Club X, which I run myself, is opening in Hongdae in the basement across from the Samgeori Pocha. Come on over ^_^”

Love Signal is like any other bar where they sell alcohol and allow their customers to dance. However, the problem lies in the fact that the business is registered as a general restaurant rather than an adult entertainment business.

In 2015, Mapo-gu enacted an ordinance on general restaurants which allowed customers to dance at their seats. According to this ordinance, general restaurants that allow dancing must not have a separate dance floor and dancing is only allowed at the seats.

According to Kuki News, however, Love Signal had installed structures that looked like stages and even had poles set up on them. On the day Kuki News visited the club, customers were dancing on top of these structures.

While it seemed that Love Signal does not qualify to be a general restaurant, they have continued to receive the benefits of one. General restaurants pay 10% in tax while adult entertainment businesses pay an additional 13%. For instance, if a business earned a total of $10,000, a general restaurant would pay $1,000 in tax while an adult entertainment business would pay $2,300.

Upon further research, however, it turns out that the club was not in fact owned by Seungri. The club was registered under a corporation, which was owned by Yang Hyun Suk (70%) and his brother/YG Entertainment’s representative director Yang Min Seok (30%) as of December 31, 2016. Love Signal was one of the many businesses that the brothers ran.

This may pose a problem for Yang Hyun Suk in many ways, one of which include the statement he made in response to Seungri’s club scandal in January. At the time, he stated, “The personal businesses of our artists have been run unconnected to YG Entertainment and therefore, it is difficult for YG Entertainment to announce an official statement.” 

Meanwhile, the corporation that manages Love Signal has responded by telling Kuki News to confirm with the Mapo-gu Office as they could not give a response. YG Entertainment stated that they do not know when they will able to respond and the Mapo-gu Office stated that they have limitations when it comes to crackdowns.

We do go out to investigate on general restaurants that allow dancing. The office could have issued a correction order for the violation but they may have not fixed it.

ㅡ Mapo-gu Office affiliate