Pay for shake, not quake
Scores gets 241G, vics get just $1
Michael Daly seeks Pakistan earthquake relief donations outside Scores on E. 60th St. The buck he got from kind passerby was far cry from 241G bizman dropped as The News detailed.
The hand-lettered cardboard sign yours truly held outside Scores topless club on Friday night read: PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF
PLEASE DONATE
The earthquake in Pakistan having killed more than 70,000 people and left another 3 million homeless with winter closing in. Scores being the E. 60th St. club where a Missouri businessman is said to have squandered $241,000 in a single visit. A diplomat’s husband is said to have spent $129,626 the very next night.
Both men subsequently disputed the charges, but it still stood to reason that Scores would be just the place to collect for all those poor souls on the other side of the world. The patrons here pay as much as $3,200 for a magnum of Krug Clos de Mesnil champagne and thousands more for intimate proximity to nearly naked young women who at best pity them. They surely could spare a dollar or two.
Of course, the club was not likely to want a guy standing outside with a cardboard sign and a plastic cup. An extremely large and burly member of the staff quickly emerged to confirm that assumption.
"Stay away from the club," he advised in a nice enough tone.
Yours truly had taken position at the eastern edge of the club building when a young man in a yellow T-shirt and zippered sweatshirt approached from York Ave. He strode past, then wheeled around and stuffed a dollar bill into the cup before continuing on his way.
But he did not prove to be some dressed-down Scores high roller. He traversed the red carpet at the entrance without even glancing inside. He disappeared up the block as two gentlemen of the street ambled over.
"You've got to share," said one, Roger Moore.
Moore and his companion, Guy Richard Hines, had heard talk of the $241,000 Scores tab, but they did not seem at all inclined to solicit loose change from the patrons of the club just a few strides away. Moore had an immediate response to the argument that the dollar in the cup had been donated to earthquake relief and could not rightly be given to him.
"You've got to have 75 cents," Moore said.
Even a newspaper columnist would be hard pressed to refuse a handout while soliciting donations for the victims of a faraway disaster.
"Don't count it," said Hines. "Just give it."
Moore’s outstretched hand closed around three quarters and a couple of other coins. The two gentleman proceeded up the block past Scores, from which materialized a grizzled fellow wearing an unofficial FDNY cap. He was apparently affiliated not with Scores but with the apartment house next door, which he called “my building.”
"Move away from the building. I'm asking nicely," he said not at all nicely.
He was told this is a public sidewalk.
"I'm calling the cops," he said.
No law was being broken, but it was easy enough to shift position to the other end of the club. The light from the car lot there made the sign easy to read as a crowd of six manifestly inebriated young men came down the block.
One was waving an upraised index finger as if conducting an invisible band and brushed past without missing an inaudible beat. Two of his companions looked from the sign to each other and muttered something. None of them seemed even to consider adding to the cup before they veered into the club to buy overpriced drinks and tip pretty women for being underdressed.
A tall blond in a short white jacket then approached from the corner, a pink purse on her shoulder, a big bottle of water clutched to her chest. She seemed not the tiniest bit inclined to part with any of her undoubtedly hard-earned cash before vanishing into what was apparently the club’s employee entrance.
Another extremely large and burly man emerged from the main entrance, this one wearing a long brown leather coat and looking familiar. He was Chuck Zito, once a Hell’s Angel honcho, now an actor, bodyguard and part-time host at Scores.
"I have to see what the sign says," Zito said in the nicest possible tone.
He was told that the sign was a kind of social experiment hypothesizing that the patrons of a club where a guy could drop $241,000 in a night would surely be willing to make a donation.
"I doubt it," Zito said. "I doubt it."
At the end of an hour, Zito was proven right. Nary a one of the dozen or so patrons who passed the sign dropped even a penny in the cup. The lone donation was from the young man in the yellow T-shirt. His dollar is now on its way along with a donation from yours truly to the earthquake victims in Pakistan, who need all the help we can give them.
**Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/358238p-305278c.html
My take: Absolutely disgusting… I can’t even say anything…
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