club bouncer extorted $20-$40 from me. ever experienced this?
gothamyte
from that Adam Westsiiiide of Gotham
ever been extorted by someone at the SC......for non-sexual stuff?
what would you have done in this sitcho?
this happened long ago. i was visiting a relatively safe, 'hood SC, but in a rough part of town (especially at night). happened to park my car directly across the street, which was rare: usually i parked on the same side of the street as the club, but blocks away. that day i "got lucky" there was a spot directly across the entrance. at some point in the night, probably before going home, i noticed that i lost my keys. jumble of keys were on it: house, car, etc. couldn't find my keys anywhere. kept going to my car to see if it was locked inside of it and was checking the actual street when suddenly the bouncer, who is standing outside the SC and had been watching me silently, says "you're looking for these?" and holds up my keys. i'm elated. but then he says pay me if you want them back.i can't remember if it was $20 or $40. prolly $20.
at first i thought it was a joke. i was going to refuse because i had a spare on me. but there was also my house keys on it, office keys and spare keys to other family member's cars on it. it'd be better to have my keys back. i thought of reporting him, but he was a big dude and i thought as soon as i'd go back inside (without my keys to report him) he looked like the type to jog on over to my car, open it and take whatever he wanted. now he knew exactly which car the keys belonged to and who owned the car. also, i'd been in the club awhile before i noticed my keys were missing--he also looked like the type of bouncer who'd stand outside call one of his buddies and ask them to go off and make copies of my keys for him while he continued to standby outside as a bouncer so he could hit me up, later.
i felt that his extortion of $20-$40 was not a suggestion or an offer but an absolute statement. i paid him. good thing i still had $ on me but as i remembered, i usually was very thrifty at that particular SC for no reason. i may have gone to the atm nearby too.
all i could do was privately wish him bad karma. and yeah, i didn't go back to that SC for a long while.
what would you have done in this sitcho?
this happened long ago. i was visiting a relatively safe, 'hood SC, but in a rough part of town (especially at night). happened to park my car directly across the street, which was rare: usually i parked on the same side of the street as the club, but blocks away. that day i "got lucky" there was a spot directly across the entrance. at some point in the night, probably before going home, i noticed that i lost my keys. jumble of keys were on it: house, car, etc. couldn't find my keys anywhere. kept going to my car to see if it was locked inside of it and was checking the actual street when suddenly the bouncer, who is standing outside the SC and had been watching me silently, says "you're looking for these?" and holds up my keys. i'm elated. but then he says pay me if you want them back.i can't remember if it was $20 or $40. prolly $20.
at first i thought it was a joke. i was going to refuse because i had a spare on me. but there was also my house keys on it, office keys and spare keys to other family member's cars on it. it'd be better to have my keys back. i thought of reporting him, but he was a big dude and i thought as soon as i'd go back inside (without my keys to report him) he looked like the type to jog on over to my car, open it and take whatever he wanted. now he knew exactly which car the keys belonged to and who owned the car. also, i'd been in the club awhile before i noticed my keys were missing--he also looked like the type of bouncer who'd stand outside call one of his buddies and ask them to go off and make copies of my keys for him while he continued to standby outside as a bouncer so he could hit me up, later.
i felt that his extortion of $20-$40 was not a suggestion or an offer but an absolute statement. i paid him. good thing i still had $ on me but as i remembered, i usually was very thrifty at that particular SC for no reason. i may have gone to the atm nearby too.
all i could do was privately wish him bad karma. and yeah, i didn't go back to that SC for a long while.
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42 comments
You could call the cops which would eventually result in your keys being returned. But I wouldn’t want the hassle.
this happened long ago. before cell phones. now that i think about it, a bouncer like him in the 'hood prolly goes through accidentally lost items a lot. and finally figured out a way to make money off of it. i'm sure he had a full-proof plan against cops or whatever. he had my keys the whole time. he saw me go back and forth to my car without saying anything to me at first.
1) don't visit strip clubs
2) pay the piper
Well he was back checking on me every 5 minutes. So no fun to be had. I cut it short and left. This is what is known as greasing the bouncer. I leaned the hard way.
@gothamyte - there's a guy here that's an expert on greasing bouncers, but I can't remember who it is...
Only time I've ever been gouged by a bouncer is paying $5 to bypass the scanning of my driver license.
Would you expect a $20 tip if you found someone's keys?
and to hear other stories of extortion to keep us all on our toes.
Your answer to this question will tell me a lot about you: What would you have done - if the bouncer didn’t ask for money?
I’ve tipped guys at clubs in sketchy neighborhoods to watch my car several times. I never thought twice about the money either.
One can call the cops but these douches are often street-smart and they can easily get rid of your keys and deny they ever had them.
No easy solution when dealing w/ someone not playing by the rules.
butt certainly less would have been better.
>Your answer to this question will tell me a lot about you: What would you have done - if the bouncer didn’t ask for money?
had dude not asked me for money i wouldn't've given him any, of course. but i'm a different type of cat, tho. i don't equate money with 'happiness' or 'fulfillment'. so maybe i'd would've bought dude his favorite drink inside. and i think that establishment did offer some light food, so i'd offer him that. or pay for a table dance for him. somehow him asking me for money directly was foul. because as papi_chulo said, it's my property. thanks for finding it but everybody loses stuff. i'd kinda expect that from a dancer to be foul like that, but a bouncer? i didn't see that coming.
by the way, this was a club i'd been to multiple times in the past. i'm sure the bouncer had seen me before. we never conversed or nothing. that's what made the whole thing so odd. i wasn't a newbie at the club. and i've seen him again when i returned to the club years later. i marked my 21st birthday there (alone.)
Funny shadow, when I last visited Goldrush, I had a fantastic uninterrupted time with a young beauty. Of course, I paid the shakedown, which they called a "stage skip fee" that was being split evenly between the manager and the DJ.
But this is something a little different. Voluntarily paying a guy to stay away so that you can have sex is one thing. Having your car keys held hostage is quite another and not something he should have expected a tip for. Having said that, the guy did do the OP a solid by finding them, so...
I've found people's phones in clubs and never expected a tip. If someone kept it, I would call the police and have them charged with theft and the find the phone app would make it ring. The police in some locations would be more than happy to be able to file charges at a strip club unless they were paid off illegally.
I remember a club was successful until a dancer started routinely stealing from customers. Some complained in the club before walking out angrily never returning. Fast forward 2 years of small crimes going unpunished by strip club workers. Club isn't busy at all on what used to be a busy weekend night. City is trying to shut the club down with a new ordinance. Dancer steals from me a regular of hers. I also walked out angrily after saying something. Thought about not ever returning. Instead I did the right thing and reported it online to the club and chain. I didn't want to bother with the police. Some clubs you get ignored if you have a general complaint. This club and chain took immediate action. Unfortunately the city successfully shut them down months later but I did return and the manager actually thanked me. I remember when I returned and told someone I sent the email, I was wondering if I was going to be immediately kicked out and not kicked out in a pleasant way. Was I looking for trouble? I was treated special afterwards. Manager and still working bouncers would wave to me on future visits or shake my hand in the club. Dancers seemed to treat me different. So much for remaining anonymous and blending in with the crowd. I had to stop visiting after less than a year. Club was shut down. Too close to a church.
But he's a bouncer. He doesn't give shit what you think of him.
What I'm saying is pretty much what you said a few posts after your question to me: "one is on their turf and they have an advantage over you - not much one can do except play ball (similar to when a dancer rips you off and she already has your $$$; not much you can do) - I may have paid the $20 but not more than that - and if I was in an unfamiliar area even harder to stand your ground - plus in the pre-Uber days you may be stuck w/o your keys - and even w/ Uber you may be stuck not being able to get into your place."
The point being unless you were a complete newb, you should have known the rules were different when you walked in "a relatively safe, 'hood SC, but in a rough part of town".
The savvy thing to do was don't fucking lose your keys in a stripclub.
Another way to nail him is to start your phone recording in your pocket. You then approach and ask for your keys. Then whammo, you got him on record. This tactic only works if you're in a jurisdiction, where only one party needs to know a recording is being made.
The police aren’t going to do much for a nonviolent crime, in my experience. I wouldn’t expect them to dust for prints. LMAO.