Content area
Full Text
QUESTION: WHAT DOES Toronto the Good have that is raunchier than Las Vegas, livelier than New York, and sleazier than Detroit? Answer: Metro Toronto has a strip bar scene that makes most U.S. cities, with their decadent reputations, pale by comparison.
There are 63 clubs in Metro Toronto designated as adult entertainment parlours and at last count 1,528 licensed dancers, and they form a part of the entertainment industry that generates more than $100 million a year in Metro alone. The money comes from alcohol sales, and bringing in the thirsty crowds requires a seemingly endless stream of beautiful young women -- many imported from Montreal. It's a little piece of heaven or hell, depending on how you look at it.
The present "adult entertainment" situation in Metro Toronto is probably unique in all of North America and it came about because of two conflicting forces: the licensing of clubs and dancers in Metro, which tries to act as a controlling influence; and the advent of table dancing at virtually every club, which makes things about as wide open as they could be. (For the uninitiated, table dancing involves a dancer very quickly stripping down to the buff while standing on a table or portable platform, posturing and grinding as close as one inch from the customer's face.)
Not everyone is happy with the present system. Some dancers, especially the older ones who see stripping as an art, say table dancing has resulted in more women working harder at a more dehumanizing job for less money. Some owners resent having to pay the almost $4,000 annual licensing fee for their clubs and complain that the additional $74 annual licence for dancers discourages the really good ones from coming to Toronto. There are also allegations of widespread drug abuse and prostitution.
No, Toronto is not like it used to be. To appreciate the difference between the old and the new, one must visit Le Strip -- an old-fashioned strip club on Yonge Street -- and then take in one of the bars like the Manhattan Strip, Metro's newest and, at more than 400 seats, its largest, located just inside Metro's northwestern boundary.
LE STRIP IS A LONG, NARROW theatre with 150 old-fashioned theatre seats facing...