Halifax is my base of operations.
I started full-service work a few years before the pandemic and recently started up again. Even though I really don’t have a lot of options for work, I honestly love this work. As a transgender woman, it’s nice to be my own boss and have my gender acknowledged, sought after even, by my clients. I have gotten into multiple arms of the adult industry, and I am always looking for new ways to engage with my clients and audience. So the lack of strip clubs in my city really gets to me. A little dream of mine is to someday start a trans strip club.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, has no strip clubs
Due to a holdover of 1970’s bylaws [1] that were altered in 2021 for the sake of sex toy store Venus Envy [2]. At that time, some counsellors [3] disparaged the idea of strip clubs in the news and were adamant that the discussion is done as long as they are currently in office. These bylaws have had a direct impact on burlesque performances as well, though not drag performances - even when they are similar to burlesque [4].
These puritanical bylaws keep strip clubs out of the downtown core and successfully shut down the last strip club in 2018 [5]. Even after Ralph's Place tried to keep business flowing by operating a shuttle to their club in 2016, they could not stay afloat [6]. Some argue they could have if they were closer to the downtown core, but we could speculate on all kinds of possibilities.
We all know what this is rooted in, and I’m honestly not interested in moral arguments. I got into camming a decade ago as a way to overcome financial abuse and serious self-image issues. I got into full-service work because after I came out as trans, it was almost impossible to find a job, and I wanted to not be homeless. Loving this job is why I’m sticking around, but I need this job to survive as well. It’s not a moral issue. It’s my life.
Obviously, not having strip clubs doesn’t mean we don’t have options.
As my own experience shows, those options are either: starting out online, which carries a substantial risk of getting outed and leaving a permanent record of our work on the internet, or going into full-service work, which is honestly not for everyone. And even if a dancer does full-service work, a club offers yet another space to connect with potential clients and, ideally, some bouncers to keep harassers and cheapskates out.
During the pandemic and throughout lock-downs, running strip clubs has likely been difficult for the owners. Because of this pandemic situation, I feel it’s unlikely that anyone would be looking to open up a strip club at this moment. But strip clubs aren’t going to go away and will be a worthwhile endeavour again, in time. And honestly, I’d love to start a worker-owned co-op if I could someday.
Despite the moral attitude of the municipality, the province of Nova Scotia wants to double the population [7], and the Halifax municipality considers itself a tech hub [8]. The province and municipality have these big dreams, but we don’t have any strip clubs? Am I fooling myself to think strip clubs are a great draw for the municipalities intended crowd? A little secret, I am a nerd myself, and I can assure you this subculture is horny AF.
The municipality can’t blue ball the city forever.
Now is the best time to push for changes or even the removal of these outmoded bylaws so that when the market is ripe for a new strip club, it won’t be Impeded. Some people here in Halifax have the idea that no one actually wants a strip club downtown. If that were true, we wouldn’t have a market for any kind of sex work, to be honest. Not all full-service clients would go to a strip club, but many of them would.
Even if a few people have a problem with an adult establishment in a downtown core, the answer isn’t to ruin the fun and the market for the rest of us. A strip club doesn’t actually hurt the neighbourhood; people’s perceptions of strip clubs hurt their neighbourhoods. The answer is for these NIMBYs to just get used to it. Adults are sexual, Adult entertainment is sexual, and a strip club is a space to express that sexuality.
If this is going to happen, if we’re going to get a strip club downtown – there’s some work to be done. A little bit of organizing that I’m willing to do if I’m not alone. Workers and clients can push the politicians or try to get them replaced with people willing to change these unreasonable bylaws. Hopefully, the attitude of, or the members of, our municipality will change soon.
[2] https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/business/roger-taylor-when-it-comes-to-dealing-with-red-tape-nobodys-jealous-of-halifax-sex-shop-venus-envy-100664261/
[5] https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/federal-election/owner-mum-on-halifax-strip-clubs-demise-174701/
[6] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ralphs-place-shuttle-service-1.3423781
[7] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/immigration-emigration-population-housing-1.6196304
[8] https://globalnews.ca/news/8461777/halifax-canadian-tech-hub/
