The marquee for The Penthouse strip club in downtown Vancouver is known for its bold commentary on politics and pop culture.
“I had a funny idea probably about eight years ago, for the sole purpose of trying to make the staff and our friends laugh,” Penthouse bar manager Benjamin Jackson said.
“The first one came out, it went viral and we moved on.”
But the man behind the marquee never expected his latest message to be labeled as hate speech on social media.
“It’s shocking to me. To be honest, it’s ridiculous,” said Jackson, who came up with the cheeky “Neighbors forever, neighbors never” message in response to Donald Trump’s wish for Canada to become the 51st state.
“It’s a play on the spelling of neighbor,” he explained. Canada means neighbor with a ‘U’, while the United States does not.
The penthouse’s owner, Danny Filippone, said it’s a message about how Canadians feel about threats from the incoming president.
“‘Never neighbors’ means that we will always be neighbors to the United States, but we will never be neighbors to them in the sense that they want, right?” Filippone said.
The sign went up early Wednesday morning and immediately created a stir.
“This one we knew was going to hit some nerves,” Filippone said.
But hours after Jackson posted a photo of the new marquee on social media, his friends messaged him to say that the club’s X account was blocked. Now it says: “@ThePenthouse604 is temporarily unavailable because it violates the X hate profile policy.”
“It’s shocking to me. It’s ridiculous,” Jackson said.
The club owner is dumbfounded. “What happened to freedom of expression? I mean, this is far from hate,” Filippone said.
But there has been a silver lining.
“I was talking to friends last night and they were like, ‘Oh, it sucks that your account is suspended.’ I thought, ‘no, this is the best thing that could have realistically happened to us.’ The sign was obviously going to have good traction, but having the suspension also contributed to the story,” Jackson said.
There is an order for 100 T-shirts with the slogan “Forever Neighbors, Never Neighbors” and a coffee table book for the Penthouse marquee is already in the works.
“Last night I literally had a bidding war with three publishers who wanted to publish the book,” Filippone said.
While the exposure has been great, Jackson hopes the club’s X account will be reinstated soon.
“I think in a day or two someone will review it, realize that this is clearly not a hate speech situation, and then return our bill to us,” he said.
But the message on the marquee will remain.
