SAN DIEGO, Calif.—You have to wonder, what is it with some people? Nationwide gentlemen's club chain Déjà Vu Showgirls is trying to do its part to help the homeless keep warm as the nights, even in San Diego, get colder. But apparently, some yahoo with nothing better to do complains that there's something wrong with the effort just because the chain has imprinted its logo on the two hundred (200!!!) tents it has donated.
So does CBS 8 TV in San Diego laud the club for its charity? Of course not; the story's headline on its website reads, "San Diego strip club charity sparks controversy over homeless tents."
Not unlike a similar story out of Las Vegas, where Déjà Vu got another ration of shit from some mother who didn't like the logos because she feared she'd have to explain to her kid what a strip club was, yet another nameless individual told CBS 8, "It's not like we're afraid of it, but at the same time, I just don’t think it's the right way to do things."
Yeah; if a charitable act can't be anonymous, it shouldn't be done, right?
Fortunately, Déjà Vu isn't as cold—one might say, "un-Christian"—as the complainers appear to be, with the club's manager, in keeping with corporate policy, trying to fill a need that the city itself apparently can't (or doesn't want to) address.
"This time of year, it's really cold," noted club manager Chris Ragsdale. "There are a lot of people here that I didn't realize were homeless until we gave them a leg up ... Somebody's got to do something about it."
That "somebody" isn't the city of San Diego itself. According to the CBS 8 story, a city spokeswoman "suggested the club might be better off investing in nonprofits 'to get people off the streets and into permanent housing.'"
That would be the permanent housing the city somehow hasn't found the wherewithall to build on its own.
But for Ragsdale, the city's statement was a sort of wake-up call.
"It has brought light to the situation," he said. "Whether a marketing tool or not, you have brought light to a situation that has been exacerbated by the state that doesn't have a handle on what's going on."
To be fair, the city did send a seven-page letter to CBS 8 titled "Homeless Initiatives," but it only served to show how little the city, which has known about this problem for more than two years, has accomplished—though of course, it's done plenty of "studies." The results so far? Well, it's established a parking lot where homeless who live in their cars can park safely, and it's put together a 136-space "Transitional Camping Area" where some of the city's 3,200 unsheltered homeless can set up tents—even Déjà Vu tents—and it's arranged for a place where they can store their sometimes voluminous belongings. And while the city says it has plans to build affordable housing, to which it's put $25 million in reserve, "Proposals are currently being reviewed by Civic San Diego and should be concluded by later this fall." The city's letter is undated, but apparently "this fall" means the fall of 2017.
Bottom line: It appears that one strip club has done nearly as much to help the homeless find shelter than has the entire city of San Diego.
UPDATE: Sure enough, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that "Katie," yet another anonymous mom, has gotten her panties in a twist because "she was taken aback when her two middle-school-age children asked her what Déjà Vu was after seeing the name on some tents around her home in the Midway District." She also called the club "depraved" for putting its logo on the tents.
"These tents with their logos on them are all over my neighborhood now!" she wrote to the Union-Tribune. "I called their corporate company the Déjà Vu Services and got nowhere with them. They kept saying it was just community service."
