It’s no secret that strippers who hustle stand to make a lot of money. The same goes for the waitstaff, bartenders and anyone else who relies on tips to make a living. The trouble only surfaces when the balance of hustle to customer gets out of whack which has become the case for poor old Remington’s Men of Steel on Yonge Street.
When Remington’s first opened they were filling a much needed gap in the stripper industry by catering to men only and it worked because the place was generally jam packed with excited guys. They came under fire many times by community members for refusing entrance to women. I should know because one night me and my friends dressed up a girlfriend of ours like a boy (baseball hat et all) so we could sneak her in and we made it past the doorman, paid our cover, got a wrist stamp and made it to the second floor where were caught by a manger and asked to leave. But that was a long time ago.
A month ago we dropped by over Pride week to catch some peelers but instead we were treated to a dozen women who were holding a bachelorette party and as such had taken up the entire front row of the first floor stage. Mind you, the bride was wearing a giant white wedding gown so the gaggle of them took up double the space. Hardly the erotic scene we came for. We stayed for ten minutes, just long enough to watch the bride get up on stage and twerk with the stripper. Now where has this scene been played before? Oh yes I know, at every single heterosexual strip club for women, that’s where.
Always a good sport, we gave Remington’s another try in hopes of catching a glimpse of the elusive gay male stripper, no dice. Instead
we were treated to a stripper that broke the social edicat rule of not hustling a customer who avoids eye contact. If a customer is not looking in your direction or making eyes at you please don’t come by the table any way and if you still want to see if you can score a table dance they ask, once. If I say ‘o thanks’ then please top asking me in different ways. I said no because I don’t like the feeling on being hustled and so hustling me more isn;t going to get you closer to my money but it will alienate me from the space and your next pole dance.
\ cause now I’m afraid to look at you.
It was my friends turn to buy the next round and he’d run out of cash so he went to the ATM conveniently located near the ‘lap dance’ rooms. The ATM fees at Remington’s have been structured to take advantage of drunken patrons. Fortunately that wasn’t us (yet) so my friend had been paying attention. When he came back to the table he said ‘Let’s go to Flash, this place is makes me feel horrible”. The fee for the ATM machine is set to one of the highest percentages known to bank machines, so a $200 withdrawal was a $20 service fee. During the one hour we stayed we spent $80 on drinks, $20 to the house ATM and didn’t see one dick and so that fee was the only thing I got to chock on all night.