Tipping Bouncers for VIP and Champagne Room Visits?

Although I'm sure there are more, there's only one club that I go to where bouncers handle the VIP -- mostly it's waitresses. Call me sexist, but I have a stock rule that females always get better tips from me than males. At the front door? A guy gets a "thank you"; a girl gets a buck or two. Female bartenders get bigger tips than male bartenders. Etc, etc.

Back to that one club -- being in a generous mood, I tipped the bouncer pretty heavy when I paid him for the room. Ten minutes later, the idiot is sticking his head in saying "Easy with the hands, guys" -- when the most adventurous at the time was my left hand on the side of her right breast. That was my first (and last ever) VIP at that club.

Basically, I tip a waitress for whatever, because you tip waitresses. I tipped the bouncer to leave me the hell alone, and he didn't.

Do you have to, of course not. But in many clubs bouncers tend to check on activities, but sometimes forget as they count their tips.

If it ensures PRIVACY, fine...it is a cost of doing "business". If it doesn't, well...my $$$ goes elsewhere I guess.

Champagne rooms are just a rip off.

I've never found a correlation between bouncer tips and privacy. I've done it both ways, and I think when the dancer suggests tipping the bouncer for a better time, it's as often as not a way to suck more $ from us with no uptick in service.

June 17, 2011 - I visit the Goldrush Showbar in Atlanta. I was there just to see my special gal. A 30 minute VIP trip here is $35 to the house but there is a gotcha. Once you get to the booth the manager/bouncer hits you up for an additional $20 "skip" tip. This guarantees that she will not get called to stage while she is back there with you. The manager and DJ split it. To avoid this in the past I would just wait until after she just gets off stage. Well on this day I declined the skip charge from a new guy. And for the first time in 2 years of going there, the dude comes back there and interrupts us. Fortunately my dancer saw him coming. He didn't say anything but gave me a dirty look. My dancer was now nervous and I was turned off. I paid her and left without doing the 30 minutes. Should I have greased him? Fuck him. I haven't been back. At Follies dancers are automatically taken off stage rotation when you pay the VIP charge.

@Lee,right on with your tip policy. Females get way more from me than men.This tipping the bouncer thing to me is BS.Everyone in a SC is an adult.There is an agreed upon price in advance for services rendered.Unless/until the customer does something out of line the bouncer should walk away.If the girl feels threatened she can call for help.If not,what's the problem?

One more thing I forgot to ad, at the club in question the bouncers don't even want to show you to the rooms (which is the procedure there) unless you tip them. When we tipped the $50 our dancer told us was expected, the bouncer complained that "it was usually $100 for 30 min" and that he "would close that curtain real nice and tight and leave it closed." My response was that we were not going to be doing anything in there he could not open the curtain to peek and not to pay the extra $50 but my husband did not want to have a potential problem with the bouncer for either us or our dancer so he went ahead and paid the other $50. As it was, the bouncer did not open the curtain but did walk by twice during the 30 min and interrupt with "everything ok in there? need anything?" This was in addition to the waitress who came by twice to see if we needed drinks.

It was our first champagne room visit but all of the interruptions made it hard for me to relax. If it had not been for the interruptions it would have been great because we had a very willing high mileage entertainer with whom we were very comfortable because of previous interactions.

Shadow - Good call on your part. Who needs these aggravating add-ons. Follies comes thru with great VIP and straight forward pricing, without all the shenanigans.

sc,

NO, you did the right thing. Until clubs understand that without customers, they have nothing but a club into which they can pour cash.

If the bouncer is doing management's job if making sure nothing liquor license revocation worthy is going on, and a bit of graft is going to keep him from being as diligent as he might otherwise be, then I might consider it. I would be more likely, though, to simply decline the VIP altogether and negotiate some takeout, depriving both the club and the bouncer any cut at all.

m00tpoint, what you describe above, however, is a shakedown, plain and simple. You were right to decline, and your husband was premature in caving in.

Great question. I have had mixed results. I recently did my second VIP ever in 30+ trips. I didn't get any additional privacy, with two interruptions. This was with a $20 information tip and a $50 VIP dance tip.

The first time I did VIP a few years ago, it did get me complete privacy. Unfortunately the rules are much stricter these days because of new legislation.

shadowcat, that's ridiculous! (your experience at Goldrush) I've never been to a club where the dancer wasn't taken out of rotation during VIP. And at Mardi Gras, I've gotten a dancer out of rotation, who was just sitting with me, for a measly $5 to the DJ *after* he had called her name -- sometimes I had to imply that I was about to take her to VIP, but usually not. And he always genuinely thanks me for the Lincoln.

Rod8432: "I think when the dancer suggests tipping the bouncer for a better time, it's as often as not a way to suck more $ from us"

I'm totally with you on that, except I wouldn't say "I think". ;-) And I'd bet the farm that the dancer gets a cut of that extra money (or otherwise receives benefit from the bouncer).

OTOH, when the dancer refers to the bouncer as an "assfucker", probably not so much. ;-)

The dancer in question warned me about the bouncer on duty and that he would try to get more tip. She felt it was ridiculous they expected a tip at all but she also warned us if we did not he would poke his head in every five minutes. I appreciated the heads up but hate the idea of having to tip him at all. In general, she bitches about the bouncers and how much $$ she has to pay them at the end of every shift so we are pretty sure she was not part of any shake down and was just trying to make sure we got what we wanted out of the experience. In fact, I know this because it was our first time and we really did not know what to expect or what we wanted and she was very worried after that we were disappointed. (we were not as we went in with no preconceived notions)

OTC with one of our favs is not an option as she commented once that she told the new girls the best way to get regulars who ask for you is to never do OTC. We weren't leaning toward OTC with her but that made very clear her thoughts on the matter.

Lee,

I know, factually, that you are incorrect, so where is my farm? ")

I thought the bouncers worked for the dancers and the club.

In any business, everyone works for the customer.

Of course, exactly who is the customer isn't always intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

gmd,

And that very same reasoning is why, today, we have who we have as our President!

@shadow - lol on the Goldrush thing. Good thing that I DID tip the manager there. ;) Nobody bothered me during my time, not even a waitress. Hell, I bet that the manager knew exactly what you were going back for and fucked with you because you didn't pay him - LOL.

As a general matter, if one has dicey activities in mind then I believe that one should apply a little grease. Now in a "clean" place it won't usually help you, but in a place where things are more borderline - or even just striaght out nasty - a good tip can do all sorts of wonders. If I'm gonna' hand a girl $150-200 anyway, what the hell is another $20 to make sure that my ROI is as high as possible? Grease has worked well for me in a number of ways over the years, including ensuring privacy, being directed to the right "types" of girls, etc.

tipping in advance sounds more like a bribe.

rick: I knew that you would get a kick out of that and exactualy what you would say. LOL. But I am sticking to Follies unless things get sour there.

Rickdugan - I would not even be asking if the amount was $20 but to be told $50 was not enough was beyond unbelievable to me. I agree $20 is fair but, come on, $100 for 30 min? And that was just one Champagne Room. Sounds to me like the bouncer thinks he should earn like a dancer and doesn't work for it.

Moot, your situation sounded more like a high $$$ shakedown. Usually 20-40 will do the trick nicely. And when I tip in that range, I usually tell them that they can hold the waitress service too. ;)

MOOT - I'm with rickdugan on your experience. There have been some clubs I've been in where the tip parade never ends, which turns out to be nothing but a shakedown. This happened at Cheri's in Vegas to me. I swear by the time I tipped out, I'd spent a quarter again as much as the basic VIP price. Never again.

An old TUSCL buddy just pointed out one that I had never thought of. He tips the DJ $5 to play two 5 minute songs, when he takes a dancer to the couch room for a 2 fer 1 lap dance.

If a five dollar tip sways a DJ, you're in a shitty club.

Please keep in mind I am in Chicago and everything costs more there. But I agree it was wasy too high

$100 tip to the bouncer is insane. 20 should cover him. That bouncer has a nice little racket going.

moot, I club in NYC. Trust me, if the guy is looking for $100 for his own pocket it is a shakedown.

I have never felt that tipping anybody but the dancer has gotten me any service I wouldn't have gotten anyway. However, I definitely believe that a reasonable tip to the timekeeper has tended to lengthen the duration of whatever activities are going on.

I don't tip bouncers.

The clubs will hit us for every dime they can get out of us. I did not read the whole Penthouse Club 10Q filing, but I did notice that their last quarter's income increased because of "service fees," later defined as tips and service charges collected in addition to what is paid to dancers. Maybe we should go back to tableside $10.00 air dances and see how they like it.

vm,

But I heard you tip cows!

i don't usually go the vip route, only did it a few times because for the most part i think they're a waste of money. one time i did a semi-private vip where i had to pay the bouncer for it in advance and at the time it didn't occur to me to tip him. i was aprenhensive about the whole paying in advance thing and wasn't sure how things would turn out. i ended up having a decent time and the bouncer didn't come back until a few minutes after the time expired and even announced himself before he came into view.
i haven't been in that club for close to a year and i don't know if that guy still works there but he was always polite and respectful when i saw him there and if and when i go back i will tip the guy if he's still there.