skadoosh

I made the mistake of going to the Furnace last night. It is the tamest strip club that I've been to thus far. I knew it wasn't going to be good when I saw that LE was onsite and in the club. Apparently an officer stays at the club on the weekends. The cover (10 bucks) and drink prices were fine. The interior is very nice, one of the nicest clubs that I've been to. The girls looked pretty decent. Not drop dead gorgeous but okay. There were probably 10-12 of them. I had thought there might be a few more on a Saturday night. Anyway, that is where the positives generally end. The girls do get topless and don't wear pasties ( I wasn't sure if B'ham required it or not). The stage is kind of high, which sort of separates the dancers from the crowd and, thus, doesn't really encourage stage tipping. They have little side areas (I won't even call them side stages because they really aren't that big) that the girls dance on after leaving the main stage and they do get a little closer to you there. Actual contact is not going to happen, though, as you have LE onsite (though not necessarily inside the club at all times - they stay outside some of the time) and the Furnace has a number of bouncers who watch out for anything and appear to be a bit overbearing. I haven't seen that many bouncers inside a club before (1 or 2 inside but not 4 or 5 working the inside like the Furnace). I saw them scolding a few guys on a couple of occasions, so they aren't a laid back crew. I did get a lap dance just to see if things would improve there. Big mistake. It was 20 bucks a song, which is fine price-wise but they don't even have a separate room for the lap dances. The dances occur on couches off to the side of the main stage and in full view of everyone in the club - customers, dancers and security staff. Even worse, I put my hand on the dancer's hip when the first song started and she brushed it off, saying that we weren't allowed to do that. So, essentially, I paid 40 bucks for 2 songs for a topless girl to gyrate on me for 6 minutes while I keep my hands to myself. I kid you not. I explained to her how things were in Jackson MS, Memphis and New Orleans and how lame this was but to no avail. Instead, she tried to persuade me to go to the VIP with her for 150 bucks (she went 125 bucks when I rebuffed her quickly). I wasn't about to pay 125 for a VIP dance after getting such a pitiful lap dance. I mean, who is to say the VIP dance would even be any better? I am not about to pay that much in just the hope of actually getting an acceptable lap dance. I finished my last beer pretty quickly and left. I certainly can't recommend it to anyone by any stretch and can't imagine that anyone else has had a vastly superior experience there. I can't see how they stay busy other than the reality that they apparently have no real competition in Birmingham.