A landlord commenced a holdover proceeding against four respondents based on allegations that the respondents had committed a nuisance. The litigation had been calendared for trial. The landlord moved “to permit its witnesses to testify at a closed hearing at which respondents will not be able to observe the faces or ascertain the identities of the witnesses.”

The landlord’s claimed that the respondents and their invitees “have congregated in the common areas of the building” and have made “noise, left garbage, harassed tenants in the building, assaulted petitioner’s principal, sold marijuana, broken the lock on the common entrance of the building, and trespassed onto the roof of the building at the same time that gunshots were fired.”