Cigars and Stripes?

[watcher]

https://youtu.be/WFS3KnwuOzc

Story or non-story? My guess is it's just the beginning. It's been picked up nationally.

[Ted]

Yes, there has been a LOT of discussion about this on Facebook, especially on the Berwyn Cool Kids site.

   Surprisingly, a lot of defenders of the owner of Cigars and Stripes are defending this, claiming it was put up for Halloween and never taken down.  But, there was another post saying that the owner put up the mirror in 2001.

[markberwyn]

"I will burn this fucking place to the ground before I get rid of that mirror." Old-school Berwynism strikes again.

http://jezebel.com/woman-uncovers-two-way-mirror-in-a-bar-bathroom-owner-1700336259

[Ted]

  Well, this story has gotten international coverage, including coverage in the U.K. and Australia. 

  The owner is a former wrestling manager, so some people are wondering if this was all a publicity stunt, both for the bar and for the female comic who made the video.

  What surprised me most were all the posts on Facebook from Berwynites defending the owner.  There was even a post called "I LOVE RONNIE" defending the owner which tens of people have LIKED. 

Here was one comment by someone who knows the owner:

"Ronnie is a master at promotion & media. He lives for this stuff. Has anyone considered that he started this himself? If you know Ronnie, you know it's possible. Let's all agree that if you are offended by it, don't go to this bar. For the rest of us, it will not change a thing. There is no creeping going on there. The people who know. Know."


And here is a response:

"Been in a lot of ladies rooms in over 60 years. Not once have I been in a ladies room with a closet in it. THAT I can tell you for sure. I have watched Mr. Ronnie take posts down on the Cigars and Stripes Facebook page that explained to him why it is wrong. Without the person's name here was one of the posts: "I have a lot of friends who have attended shows at your business. I'm going to tell all of them about this. I know several of them will not have known about the supposedly obvious two-way mirror. Sure, it may sound far-fatched to have someone hide in there, but it would be pretty easy to hide a camera/phone inside. All I know is, I don't ever want to patronize an establishment where I have to check behind a door every time I have to take a piss, just to make sure there's nothing/nobody back there that shouldn't be. That's way too much work. So, I'll just have to keep on enjoying my comedy elsewhere." END Now consider movies Ronnie has been in with pal Vitio (they make movies) who the hell knows. Put the closet in the men's bathroom.

I just don't get the lack of concern. The bathroom is open all over. It has NO STALL per se. The door sits right across from the toilet. Anybody, even a woman, could for an evening set a camera behind that door. She could place it there for someone else, and then remove it and hand it over to someone at the end of the night. There are so many scenarios for doing something bad here. As far as nice guys go ... yeah ... lot's of nice guys get away with bullshit. That's the cover ... "I'm a nice guy". His language in response to concerns was totally unprofessional to the point he's talking about a woman's clitoris? come on How does the word "clitoris" fit in a response to reasonable concerns? Then tells someone to go fk themselves? Only in Berwyn."

[Ted]

And, here is an explanation from the owner:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/27/ronnie-lottz-two-way-mirror_n_7156874.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

The owner of an Illinois bar is defending his decision to have a two-way mirror in a women's bathroom, saying the woman who took video of the mirror ruined his "fun house gag."

In a story first reported by Jezebel, female comic Tamale Rocks posted a video showing a two-way mirror in the women's bathroom at Berwyn bar and comedy club Cigars and Stripes. The owner, Ronnie Lottz, told the Huffington Post the mirror is staying.

In a recorded phone conversation, Lottz said the mirror was part of his "live art," and that the comic who posted the original video simply wanted attention.

"I have to tell you this: The woman who recorded that obviously has had a little difficulty with her career, and everybody is looking for that niche right now. They just gotta find that viral video," Lottz said.

Lottz says people go to his bar for a one-of-a-kind, funhouse experience. "I make a living on making people either very happy or take them out of their reality for a couple of hours of their life. My bar is promoted as haunted. I was in the professional wrestling business. I have a 10 foot mummy that was stolen."

The bar owner spoke to HuffPost from a beer garden at his establishment, where he said visitors could see Bigfoot's grave.

Rocks' video shows the mirror directly opposite of a women's toilet. All it takes is the turn of the knob to go to an adjacent room, which appeared to be a closet where anyone could watch others going into the restroom.

"I noticed a full-length mirror opposite of the toilet," Rocks wrote on the YouTube page. "Curious, I explored and discovered that it was two-way mirror, the door behind it cut away to allow an unobstructed view of the toilet...and anyone who may be using it."

Lottz said he simply expects women to check behind the door before going about their business.

"[Most of the women] in there will turn the doorknob and go 'there's nobody in there, I gotta pee' and there you go. Enough said."

The two-way mirror is only in the women's restroom, Lottz confirmed. The owner said he and his staff would never allow men in there -- not because of the mirror -- but because they "piss on the seats" and upset female customers.

Lottz said members of the Berwyn Police Department checked out his bathroom earlier in the day and they saw nothing wrong with it. A call to the department was not immediately returned.

The owner said the mirror originally had a monster that would "scare" female customers.

"What we do is we put a monster behind it, and we used to have a switch, and we hit the switch, and it lights up and the monster appears, and they come running out and it's big fun," he said.

Video of the incident shows the closet is empty.

"People have been playing with that mirror for 15 years now, I'm not taking it down," he said. "Period."

[markberwyn]

I've read a lot about this and I still don't understand how a two-way mirror in a women's restroom is either a "gag" or has something to do with Halloween. Somebody explain this to me like I'm 11.

[berwyn senator]

What is old-school Berwyn-ism,never heard the term before and I am old!

[markberwyn]

What is old-school Berwyn-ism,never heard the term before and I am old!

The kind of attitude that brushes off this kind of behavior as no big deal, get over it, etc---that a boorish business owner's crudeness trumps whatever a woman thinks.

[markberwyn]

If you think the Cigars & Stripes owner's attitude is a-OK, then you're old-school Berwyn.

[berwyn senator]

I never said the bar is O along with the ridiculous mirror this is not my kind of place.What a way of obtaining free advertisement.

[markberwyn]

I never said the bar is O along with the ridiculous mirror this is not my kind of place.What a way of obtaining free advertisement.

Your first instinct was to say that it's not a big deal.

A good question for old-school Berwynites to ask themselves: Why, when you first heard about this, was your first instinct to defend the business and diminish the seriousness of the owner's behavior?

[markberwyn]

FWIW, I think the BPD needs to own some of this too. What message does it send to women in Berwyn who are sexually harrassed that the police have looked at this situation and decided it doesn't merit action?

[markberwyn]

Maybe a woman who's sexually harrassed in Berwyn should just learn to laugh it off and see the harrasser's side of things.

[markberwyn]

Just a thought: Do you think the owner would have been let off the hook so readily by the community and the police if he were black or Latino?

[berwyn senator]

Nothing surprises me anymore,about Berwyn!!

[Ted]

  I don't think this is "old Berwyn" versus "new Berwyn".  For the quotes I posted above, the quote defending the owner is a new resident (a woman in her twenties) while the quote against the owner is a Berwyn resident in her 60s who has lived here all her life.

  What did surprise me was so many woman (who are patrons of the bar) defending this.  That shocked me most of all.  And, most of them are in their 20s and 30, not old time Berwynites.

[Ted]

Just a thought: Do you think the owner would have been let off the hook so readily by the community...?

What evidence do you have that the bar owner is being "let off the hook so readily by the community".  Please provide some quotes from current Berwyn residents that you think represents the "community" thinking on this (as opposed to the police).

  The posts on BCK (except for the bar's patrons) seem to be more against the owner than for.  The only ones who seem to be defending the owner are the bar's patrons.

In fact, if anything,  I would say it is the old time Berwynites who are most critical of the owner while a younger generation seem to be more OK with it.

[markberwyn]

Just a thought: Do you think the owner would have been let off the hook so readily by the community...?

What evidence do you have that the bar owner is being "let off the hook so readily by the community".  Please provide some quotes from current Berwyn residents that you think represents the "community" thinking on this (as opposed to the police).

I'd link to the comments on Cigars & Stripes' Facebook page linking to the Jezebel article---lots of people telling people complaining to shut up, "sjw," and that sort of crap. Alas, C&S decided to delete that post.

You say the people defending the owner are the bar's patrons. Presumably Berwynites, no?

In any event, defending the owner's (and the police's) behavior strikes me as more in keeping with old-Berwyn attitudes. Or are you telling me Berwyn has traditionally been a progressive community? C'mon now.

[markberwyn]

I might also add that being an "old-school Berwynite" isn't strictly a function of age. I think we all remember a relatively young former poster here who enthusiastically endorsed police brutality and couldn't live a "normal life" here because he saw blacks and Latinos in Berwyn.

[markberwyn]

It may be that there's no such thing as "new Berwyn." Just cops and bar patrons and other residents with the same retrograde values as the previous generations.