Why I don't like Deja Vu, and perhaps it is not the same in other areas of the country as it has been in San Francisco, a reply to a friend:
Well of course I don't know how things go in other places. Here in the Bay Area things have become increasingly regulated. In Santa Clara County the authorities are terrified that it could go the same way as it has in San Francisco. So clubs are bullied into agreeing to written rules which detail the nature of coverage down to the millimeter. They are imposing rules which don't apply anywhere else except in an adult entertainment venue and which are clearly unconstitutional and would otherwise be quite unenforceable. And of course there is zero touching.
But things had been completely different in San Francisco. Jim and Artie Mitchell were raised by a father who was a professional card player and who had nothing but contempt for all authorities. Then Jim and Artie saw for themselves that at the anti-Vietnam War rallies at San Francisco State University, they always turned violent when guys wearing dark sunglasses and talking into radio head sets started shoving the crowd from all directions at once, and into a confined space. Then the San Francisco PD Tactical Squad would come in wearing Plexiglas face shields and bashing and jabbing people with their long sticks. But the impression created by what was shown on TV news was the exact opposite.
So Jim and Artie started making their movies, and opened their theater, and started putting on live shows, and then started letting their girls go out into the audience, so that they could thumb their noses at the authorities.
They found an ideal adversary too, in Mayor Diane Feinstein. She used to keep hanging in her office a map with blue stick pins showing everywhere there had been a sexual assault, and then with red stick pins showing everywhere there was a sex oriented business.
Jim had been deeply effected by a live sex show in Amsterdam where custies would line up and pay the equivalent of $1 each. Then they could each come up and wipe a girl off with a moistened towelette, and then give her a few pussy licks.
I think it is just the idea that these people are total strangers, and that just anyone with $1 can walk in and do this. Seeing something like this, it changes people. It changes the way you see other people. It was rather like what would happen to me years later, seeing this super cute black girl walking quickly down the sidewalk, and then seeing her duck into New Century, and then getting to make out with her sitting on my lap. That someone can be so open with just anyone runs completely contrary to the normal assumptions of our society.
No booths or back rooms then, all in the front room, and quite economical too. She really just opened up to me, and that she could do this with a stranger, and one who was trapped in a nightmare marriage, has changed me forever.
So Jim and Artie had built this arena like thing with access ports all around. They always started out softer core, and then began upping the ante. They weren't just trying to get away with stuff by being discrete. And I think this is what makes it different from most of what goes on other places. They wanted to infuriate the authorities and draw the maximum amount of attention to themselves. And as far as Jim and Artie were concerned, nothing was illegal until a jury of 12 could be convinced to interpret it that way.
So Jim and Artie always courted the press. They said they wanted to build the Amsterdam of the Western Hemisphere. Leading journalists on a tour and showing them the arena, Artie spoke of the Neiman Marcus department store on Union Square. He told them that they were going to be the Neiman Marcus of sex.
Then just as they had done with their movies, they started out softer core. They installed glass window panes in the ports of their DATY arena. Then the day after they were busted, and as their case was pending, they took out the window panes. They would be arrested and booked over 100 times each, and each time they went harder core the next day.
This is how San Francisco was. And Jim and Artie were able to beat the felony charges by saying that as this was all done out in the open, it was not money for sexual gratification. Rather it was a kind of sex education and audience participation cabaret show. The primary effect was to provoke and shock people.
And so it did, just as one super cute small black girl was able to blow my suit and tie middle-class world view to pieces.
But over time things changed. Under Rose Bird, the State Supreme Court overturned the Victorian Era Red Light Abatement Laws which had been invoked to close such places down. Club operators now knew that idea of a contact strip club had been vindicated. So now they did go to booths and back rooms and things got very expensive, besides going to FS.
Then came Deja Vu. They call themselves a management consulting company. They are basically a think tank. They figured out that at least in San Francisco, a fairly low crime rate and highly policed muni, that more money can be made by creating fantasy than by delivery. So the first step was to prohibit front room contact and force it all into booths and VIP Rooms. This completely changes the nature of your interaction with the girls. Now nothing can happen until you hand the girl a big wad of cash and place he situation entirely under her control. It isn't interactive anymore; it is a service she renders upon you.
Undoubtedly it sometimes goes to FS. But busting anyone over this becomes extremely difficult, and especially in San Francisco where busting only dancers would be political suicide.
So some people do pay huge sums of money for FS, rich chumps. But most people are just poor chumps, so they pay still very high prices for 'extras'. The club makes money mostly by selling an open ended expensive fantasy of what one might be able to do if they could spend more money. No more is there anything like an audience participation cabaret show which blows the minds of conservative living people like me just by being around it. Instead, it is just the old idea that sex costs money, and it costs lots of money, and even then it might not be very good, as the women are only doing it to make money.
Other areas of the country might be less tightly regulated. And also, if there are busts it will be only dancers. So club owners try to fly under the radar and just get away with what they can. So maybe in these other sorts of places Deja Vu does not use the same expensive fantasy formula. If there can still be front room makeout sessions I am glad. But I still don't want anything to do with Deja Vu, and this includes at their Chicken Ranch Brothel in Pahrump Nevada.
I am very glad that in San Francisco they seem to have retreated back to Centerfolds on Broadway only. Look on their web site, as they list nothing else in San Francisco.
SJG sites.google.com
Neil Young, Old Man youtube.com
Stairway to Heaven youtube.com


The TL;DR is: in 2000, SF was arguably in the running for best SC city in the US. Today, it's got to be among the worst major cities, and the exact cause of that is Deja Vu.
SJG and I will never agree on this, evidently, but some corrections:
"I am very glad that in San Francisco they seem to have retreated back to Centerfolds on Broadway only. Look on their web site, as they list nothing else in San Francisco."
Deja Vu continues to run every single strip club in the city except Mitchell Brothers and Crazy Horse, as far as I know -- and based on a lot of evidence, I'm pretty sure I'm right.
-->"So the first step was to prohibit front room contact and force it all into booths and VIP Rooms"
Hmm, I'm not sure where your definition of front room contact starts and ends. If it means "no extras in the front room", then definitely you're right. If it means "girls can't sit on a customer's lap in the front room", then definitely that's not true, that's not terribly uncommon. With playful girls on a relaxed shift, there might be a little stick shifting, etc.
--->"Now nothing can happen until you hand the girl a big wad of cash and place he situation entirely under her control. It isn't interactive anymore; it is a service she renders upon you."
Again, if by "nothing can happen", you are talking specifically about extras, then yes, I agree. But otherwise, from sitting on my lap, to stick shifting, to a finger inserted surreptitiously into a vagina or asshole, there are all things that can be in the "front room", with the right girl, on the right shift. There are still clubs with lazy, relaxed dayshifts, where a LOT of interaction can be had in the front room ... but that interaction won't be extras, or kissing, or heavy petting, if that's what you mean