We would like to apologise for the behaviour of some of the PRs and some of their employers on the steet outside of Centro Atlantico. Despite the many times that we rang the police, they (the PRs) keep re-appearing, as the police cannot devote so much time to this issue, understandably. (For those of you who don´t know what PRs are, they are those annoying young men and women who hassle the crap out of you on the street to get you to come into their club/bar. )
When we re-opened Charlies one and a half years ago, we didn’t want to have any PRs on the street, as we understand they can be a pain in the a*se, annoying people. We then had to put PRs down there because the others were telling customers that Charlies was closed/Charlies doesn’t open until 12, when we actually open at 9 etc etc.
We were very careful to choose intelligent, friendly PRs who are not “in your face” to protect our interest on the street.
Some of the other PRs will offer two drinks for the price of one etc etc etc. Any reasonably intelligent people would know that you would only have to do things like that if you had a sh*t pub with nothing going for it and you had to give away cheap drink for nothing to get people in.
We don’t want the type of people that want cheap free drink in Charlies anyway, apart from the fact that some of the bars charge twice the price for the third drink and put up the prices again after a certain hour when people are a little looser, and they are welcome to those idiots that can’t see through that…
We take a lot of pride in our live music/staff and the atmosphere in Charlies, and wish to apologise again for some of these a*seholes on the street – but there is nothing we can do about it.
Once you get up the steps and into Charlies you won’t be bothered by anyone from then on – unless you want to be!!!!!!
Murphy, it´s not just that they are annoying, a lot of them are outright obnoxious and recently I was literally PULLED by the arm across the street by one of them and I almost punched the guy (a skinny British black fellow) and shouted to “stop touching me!” at him a few times. I thought that really bordered on harrassment, no, hang on, it WAS harrassment!!! :O
Best way to get rid of them: hand them a flyer. I always keep a stack of leaflets and business cards in my handbag for this purpose.
I find the best leaflets to use are from religious groups – though it can backfire if the person you give it to happens to be a God head. The biz cards are ones I collect from strange men (all men are strange but I mean pestiferous ones who hang around airports, etc); when anyone you don’t fancy asks for your phone number, give them one of those (I usually say it’s my husband’s business card).
Have to say your pr’s best in world, always very respectful and like you say why get hassled on the street when you can come in and get Murphy to do it in person!!!
And Barbs what do you mean “almost” punched him??
As for escaping the other PR’s split up get head down and march right past, they assume you are going to meet up with someone and tend to leave you alone, trust me it works treat.