Sampson,

Your post made sense the first time...I do wonder how they're going to accomplish this feat though.

They tried having the guys pushing the place on the corner of Coahuila and Constitucion escort leery gringos to La Tropa and back but of course the gringos didn't trust the barkers on the corner.

Depending on the extent of the renovation it may not be too pricey, clean it up...guys with brooms aren't too expensive, more lighting and doormen who can chase away some of the lurkers.

Increased traffic down there would encourage more food carts as well...and the additional lighting and presence of the vendors would probably help reassure the guys who are reticent to venture down there.

I'm curious about the implied connection between La Tropa and AB. I always thought La Tropa was part of the Miami/Las Chavelas/Tropical group...which as far as I know are not in cahoots with the AB/CC faction.

Are they going to fix the friggin sidewalk ???

I walk to the border down that street all of the time.

It seems pretty safe to me, but more lights would be nice.

one thing i saw on our way down, was that they had chicas working the street escorting gringos into the club--and these were mighty fine chicas. i don't know how they will do any of that renovation stuff--i'm just delivering the message. they also had the barkers working kind of close to the taco stand on the corner by adelita's and they promised us a $10 bucket if we let him take us--hell we had already been in there 3 straight days--i'm surpised they even bothered with us, they had to know where we were going.

YB, ficha days over? WTF happened? Did you have a short time epiphany that made you change your ways???

Re: La Tropa, whatever they have good going on will soon pass, so enjoy it if it truly exists (doubtful) while it lasts. Unless, of course, you get off on getting drunk on the cheap and throwing the seat cushions across the bar.

And re: the walk from AB, it can be lots of fun if you're in the mood to piss off some cops. There certainly used to be enough of them trolling that area looking for drunks to make it a relatively safe walk for you 'normal' folks.

Redongdo, La Tropa IS part of the Rosales brothers empire (Trop, LC, Miami, etc).

Porker: My new girl is a dancer *only* and I never-- gracias a dios-- had to play the ficha game with her...

Unlike the *others*...Before I caught on, do you realize how many nights I spent in 2001 doling out $7 bucks-- drink after motherfetching ficha drink?...

My 2001 was a blurry concoction of loose fives and ones in my pockets and mad searches for quarters on the meseros' drinktrays...

At least I paid a little less at Carreta...but she certainly drank just as much...

YoungBrig

cf/ja,

So what is this "manager" at La Tropa telling Sampson?

¿That he doesn't speak good english?

actually he told my buddy, who is a local, that they are affiliated with adelita's. now i don't really need to argue this point, they feel that it will be similar to adelita's in the future. i'm seeing alot of the same folks in there, so someone must like the place.

One of them there "same folks" is probably me. Don't really know the dancers but have gotten to know many of the meseras very well. La Tropa is owned by Arturo & Miguel Rosales G. who own so many other bars but not Adelitas. Maybe they are just hoping to have business like AB.

cf, a manager at one of this familiy's bars told me that the ownership situation is a little more complicated than is commonly thought. It is not just a couple of brothers, there are other family members invoved as well. Also, it is not like a corporation or simple partnership, where each person owns a set percentage of the overall business. Rather, each club, hotel, etc. is a separate enterprise. The ownership percentages, and even which family members have an interest, vary from place to place. I can't swear this is accurate of course, but I am 99% sure that he was telling me what he believed to be true, and he has worked at various of their clubs for a few years. This would certainly explain why not all of the family's clubs let their girls use all of their hotels without a bar fine.

As you said, they have no affiliation with Adelitas, which lends even less credibility to what the manager told Sampson's buddy. Maybe he was just trying to talk the place up, since AB is the most popular club in the zona. Of course, there could have been a change recently that I don't know about, but I really doubt it, since the same people are still there. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Sampson, don't feel like anyone is attacking you. I have no doubt you were truthfully relaying what you heard, and I don't see any indication that anyone else does either.

that's fine fellows, i'm sure you all no more than i do--bottom line is i've found this place to be a refreshing change of pace from ab and cc.

Sampson:

Does a 'refreshing change of pace" include upstairs romps at US$80? I keep hearing this figure. Haven't been impressed enough by any of the girls to get close enough to ask, but it's been on Juan's TJ as such.

Stopped in on Friday night 2/22 between 11:00 and 11:30, noted some smooth skin, not all of it due to lard trying to burst free of the epidermis. No encouragement from the girls, though - in a small bar, I consider that a questionable sign. Some bajitas, a nice change over your normal big and big-boned bovine contingent. There were those there too, of course. Of *course*.

What the girls lacked in giving attention, the waiters made up for. Got hit every minute, no lie, starting when I'd taken my first sip. Half of it was for introduction services to the girls, who were like 15 whole feet away.

No gringos there, just mulatto me and a bunch of locals.

But in general, like you, I thought, 'Refreshing change, I'll have to stop in and see if it gets any better." But if there's any truth to the $80 talk, I'm just gonna put the dollars into my next-trip-to-SEA-jar. 7 or 8 "no thank-you's" at that rate and I've paid my plane fare to BKK.

Some confusion as to what $80 gets you - short or long time (as per Juans TJ). For s/t it's too much; for l/t it's suspiciously low. For what it's worth, the barker outside said all the girls inside go upstairs. If $80 is a short-time price, I have no reason to disbelieve him.

There were about 12 girls around at the time I was there, 3 approaching acceptability in my books (meaning only 10 kilos on the high side), and what appeared to be a max of 30 men, dropping to 20 with the ebb and flow over the half hour. Not the best ratio I can imagine, but better than AB on a weekend night.

P.S. to all: Has anybody actually taken a girl at La Tropa in recent history? There's a lot of talk, but I don't hear anything about action.

I've never paid a girl there so don't know how much they ask. I do have several very good *friends* at La Tropa though. It's not true that "ALL" of them go up, some are only ficheras but many do go up. All of the girls are interested in fichas and all you have to do is ask them if they want a drink. Many don't speak any English so you're much better off speaking in Spanish. Several are underage so be careful as going up with them could land you en el carcel. The vast majority of clients are codo locals who don't take the girls up or even tip the meseras.

i took a chica out of there for todos noche--$80, however the bar fine was more than that. i would guess that some don't go up, but i would also guess that 30 minutes could be had for $30-$40. i am not a short time guy, so i didn't go there. it's just my feeling if the top chica asks for $80 for the entire evening-30 or 40 is probably a fortune for most.

"however the bar fine was more than that".

What the heck does that mean?

that means that i payed 90 to the bar and 80 to the chica. currently they have a 30 ficha or 90 dollar bar fine. i was going to take her out of the bar around 1:00 am, when i found out this policy. i politely declined saying that it was unreasonable at that hour---told the chica i would be back the next night and payed the 90 dollars and took her out at 8:00. i had a nice long talk wiht the manager since, and he has assured me that if i want to take a chica out of their later in the evening he will be flexible with the fine. from his perspective he can't let chicas out for ten or twenty, because he only has 20 and he loose to much money. now this fine is not to go to their hotel, but a fine to take the chica for the evening.

$90 bar fine!!!!!???????!!!

Are you serious?

yep.

You realize that La Tropa doesn't make $90 off a chica in a week, let alone the rest of the evening. I have never heard of such a thing.

Sampson
Homey , friend , amigo
that shit wouldn't happen if you were with the Milkster !!
Explorer is mostly correct but she can make the club between 40 to 100 a night in ficha drinks and private dances but that rarely happens unless she is a knockout !!

Your fine should have been less than half of that!

As long as you have a good time thats what counts.

Next time tell them 25 dollars and see what they say.
Stand your ground , let them know you are friends with me and not only will there be no bar fine but you might get a freebee too !!!
Well thats going a little bit too far but you get the point

take care
Milman

$25 for a bar fine!?!?! At La Tropa? The place that gets 2 customers a week?

What the heck are you guys smoking?

EXPLORER

I was telling him if they demand one to not pay more than 25 dollars if they are asking for 90~!

Some of the smaller bars do have barfines !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


For someone who hits the Zona all the time you have no clue on what goes on down there.

Milkman

Spent a little time there on Saturday night.

Took a table cause there was a dancer on stage. We were the only guys at a table near the stage, and she completely refused my dollar tip. What's with that?

Anyway, hung out for a while, Redongdo convinced them to turn the sound (I refuse to call what was coming out of those speakers music. I think I have better speakers in my car than they do in this bar!) down a little, and they did.

A couple of cute chicas were around, out of about a dozen total in the bar. One I liked was occupied, and the other seemed crazy (or drunk, or...).

Waiter confirmed one I liked who was occupied went upstairs, seemed to suggest asking price was $60, but also seemed unsure of that. Suggested the other one didn't go up very often. I gathered that he meant probably wouldn't with an old fat gringo like me!

Very slow, few customers, less than a dozen girls. And I don't know what they can do to improve the walk down there unless they want to fill in some of the holes in the sidewalk.

One waitress knew me from her days working at another bar (as a hooker, not as a waitress). I suspect she would have been happy to go to the hotel with me! Friendly enough, but not my cup of tea.

Milkie:

I understand that you were advising Sampson to not pay more than $25 if the management of La Tropa were demanding $90 for a bar fine.

Let me ask the guys here:


1) Has anyone here ever paid a bar fine out of La Tropa?

2) How much was it?



Sampson, you don't need to answer.

I once paid a $10 bar fine out of Bar Tropical, which is owned by the same people that own La Tropa, and I thought it was excessive.

OK, I'm get a serious case of surrealistic psychosis. First, no chica in the zona is worth US $170 - maybe for a month, allow me to retract.

None of the girls were any better than anywhere else, just more of them in one place (3 out of 12 vs. 3 out of 60 at AB).

I was hoping there was a currency mix-up when I heard $90 - maybe 90 pesos? WTF? The people who are smoking weird shit is management. What planet do they come from? If it's true they're related, indirectly, convolutedly or not, to AB and/or CC, whatever, someone poking around for info at that bar either has a problem with Spanish, or, if management is serious, they need major reality therapy. $170 is the highest figure I've ever seen anywhere in the fucking WORLD, and the La Tropa girls I saw were nothing more more than average.

CF: none looked underage. On the contrary...And what's a "codo local"?

Sampson: you said the bar fine was 'unreasonable at that hour'. I say it's unprecededented in the entire history of the universe, unless your're after Miss Columbia 2001. Divide by 10 and you've got 'reasonable'. Management is out of their gourds.

Aside: try "toda la noche" instead of "todos noche" - maybe they think the latter means every night for the rest of their lives.

$30-$40 for a half-hour session is reasonable, as long as no b/f is included. Why would a piss-ant club like La Tropa pull shit like $90 unless it were a front trying to launder drug money or catering purely to the cocineros de coca?

Milkman: "As long as you have a good time that's what counts" - OK, so where's the money-back guarantee? The girls didn't even make eye contact, and I'm not a fright to look at - what are they gonna be like upstairs? 'Dancing the dead fish' is typical in the zona.

Your remark on the girls making $40 to $100 a night for the club is tantamount to saying that it's basically a juicer bar. Maybe I'll try Aloha next time.

******

I'll drop in again to see what the tenor is, but this bar is off the hook knowing what I know now.

Please, someone tell me this is a all a joke.

I've been to La Tropa a couple of times. Both times, the place was dead, dead, dead. The handful of chicas there were begging for fichas.

Note the almost complete lack of posts from guys here talking about taking chicas to the hotel. The laws of supply and demand hold even in the ZN over the long run. It sounds like management at La Tropa is trying to make a quick kill off some gringos before pulling the plug on the place.

Koro
Explorer
Sampson
and others interested.

First off there are many ways to Enjoy your time in TJ.
I know guys that go for the cheap street girls and pay 20 and go home with a smile on their face.
Then I know guys that spend close to 2-300 a night on chicas and think nothing of it.

$ 170 a night is exsessive ?
So what should he have paid 8 dollars for the night ?


Well most smaller bars are " juicer bars "
The clubs makes good money off ficha drinks.

La Tropa is a hit or miss club when it comes to hot chicas.

If you are looking for whore slut stripper types that fuck 89 men a night stick to Adelitas.

La Tropa can have some very young hot girl next door types.

And it can also have some fat repulsive cookie throwers !!!

Last year they held on to some hotties but only for a little bit.

Girls tend to leave her quicker than any other bar.

But you can find your diamond in the rough here.

I hit here about once or twice a week.
But stay just for a drink or 2.
they make my chocolate milk light for me and thats they way i like em!!

take care
Milky who never sleeps

well fellows, sorry if i fucked up the asking price or whatever. all critisism is welcome and warranted--i have thick skin. i did tell the manager $25 at about 11:00--he wouldn't budge, so that is why i waited for a day. i spent the whole week in tj that week, and i was in no hurry.
had a very enjoyable time at el parador--and at least they didn't try to give me the 4 hour line, that they used on me the next night. to be quite honest the money i gave the bar and the chica pails in comparison to what you can spend on drinks in the bar and quite frankly i am about a beer a month kind of guy.

now on this night(the one i didn't pay the fine} i was in a paticularly gernerous mood. i always take my cab driver/amigo in the bar with me to translate and on the way down we ran into texas mike. now i usually give him a few dollars and send him on his way even though he always offers to come in for a beer. on this paticular evening i told him to come on in with us, and that guy can drink. i've known him for a couple of years now and that was the only time i drank with him. anyway if any of you know him ask him about that evening--after i put up a bitch, he got in the middle of it as well.
now as far as the chica was concerned, she wasn't excited about the bar fine either, but she needs to play by the rules. so after our all night affair we have met before work to enjoy each others company. i'm presently looking for an apartment and she has mentioned moving in. at first i thought it would be a good idea, but don't think it will work at this time.
now i guess i've got my head up my ass, because i've had a adelita's novia for about 15 months, that i just parted ways with. i fell for her, but she just traded me for crystal, which breaks my heart--but i'm no savior. she is on her own now, and i wish her the best, but i can not bear to see the way that shit has changed her.
now explorer i'm sure you will have some fun with this post, so let's have it.

Milkman -

You asked: "$170 a night is excessive?"

I don't understand why that's even a question. If you look at prices locally in the zona, it's incredibly high. If you look third-world globally, $50 is a standard rough guide to a night's services with nothing (and nobody) fancy - Manaus, Belen, Recife, Bangkok, Mombassa, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, northern South America, Vietnam, the cream of Cambodia, on the street in the West - and *way* over lots of other places like the Philippines. So yes, any 3-digit figure starts to look a little odd, like someone's got it to burn, or is getting scammed, or is just plain ignorant. I'm not against pouring hard currency into Mexico, I just figure it's out of line for putting something hard into a Mexican girl.

I would turn the question around to you and ask 'Where else in the ZN would you see money pushing $200 on an average girl who's not markedly different from any of the other girls working clubs on Revolucion or in the ZN?" The girls at La Tropa don't have the flash or flair of the CC girls, so I'm, well, shocked, the way I would be if someone tried to sell me a T-shirt for $60. (Better come with a girl!)

(I'm also a little dismayed to hear that the procurer (ie management) gets more of the take than the girl does.)

But OK, I understand where you're coming from, I'm nobody's accountant, let people spend freely and at will ("it's only money") - I just don't get what's with some out of-the-way, unremarkable little joint with basically unremarkable girls expecting a guy to pay almost triple what the places around the corner charge. All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't see anyone I *had* to have.

Regarding hi barfines, I was once quoted $120 by Carlos at Miami Bar to take out two chicas-- $60 each...This was on a Saturday night this past Summer at about 11pm or so...

I didn't pay it, and Carlos has always seemed to have it out for me-- which I think partially figured into the price, but...that was a lot of money...

I would like to add that as my relationship deepened with one of the two girls, the barfine ceased to become an issue...If my girl wanted to leave with me, she would just take off and leave...

YoungBrig

OK...so everybody's obsessed about the barfine. I'm more curious about which chica agreed to an all-nighter for $80. Some of the chicas at La Tropa are gorgeous.

Interesting note, Youngbrig, kind of reflects the $90/$25 fluctuation in b/f that Sampson mentioned.

The fact that she would just leave with you means it's an arbitrary tax. One way to look at it is that managers are just flagrantly fleecing their customers.

And of course on principle I wouldn't return. That would be to (a) avoid wasting my dollars before any relationship 'deepened', and (b) to discourage such places from pulling stunts like this. There should have been a clause in the NAFTA agreement.

Tix for the SD-BKK-SD run are $600, Travel Network, San Diego. Ask for Sandra at the Convoy office. That's 3.53 girls at La Tropa, 5 doubles at Miami, with arbitrary taxes applied. Sheesh.

And the girls working TJ wouldn't last 5 minutes in the nighteries of BKK. They'd get laughed out the door...or actually lose some weight for want of customers. Not a bad thing, now that I think of it.

Pagan -

We all know it's a matter of taste. Gorgeous is a strong word. There were no 'gorgeous' girls at La Tropa the two times I was there, both recently. There are a couple who are slightly younger than the AB girls - so what does that mean, they're 20? - but are otherwise unremarkable. They still fill out the chairs when they sit down. I saw 12 girls on Friday the 22nd - I think I got a fair representation. It was easy to walk out.

So I'll check back in a couple months, maybe, when they've changed the b/f to 90 pesos instead of that many dollars.

I have 20/10 vision. How's yours? And I like 35 kg slim-packs, what can I say.

OK

First off TJ is not part of a third world country.
It is an extension of the usa.
Think about that before you reply with I am insane.

The Cost of living in TJ is among the highest in Mexico.

If Thailand , Costa Rica , DR and those other places you mentioned were a border town of the usa the prices would be the same.

These girls get paid well to do a dirty job.
They deserve every penny they make as it is hard earned.

They have to give up a lot to do this.
Heck drug dealers & bums are give more respect than Whores in Mexico.

Like you said Koro to each his own.
Spend 10 dollars for Pussy or 100 dollars it all boils down to getting your moneys worth.

I have paid barfines 4 times to just take girls dancing.
each one was $ 15.00 and once it was $ 25.00.

I do agree that anything more than 25 is a bit much.

Youngbrig , Carlos thinks hes a tough guy and doesnt care what the girls make.
He's never bothered me yet i have never taken a girl out of those Miami / Hong kong bars as most of those girls are heavily addicted to drugs and I want no part of that.

You have amigas there and i know who used to work there and they have to split their earnings with like 2 other parties before they see anything.

Oh well take care guys
Milky

Sorry about that Koro. I should have qualified that by saying that there WERE a number of real knockouts there last summer. The last few months, and especially since 9/11, the quality has taken a dive.

Pagan -

No problem. It's well known that girl scenes are pretty volatile in general - and also that somehow it was always better in the past (don't get me started on BKK...).

Milkman - at the risk of flogging this dead horse to a pulp, I'd like to add just a comment or two. Or more.

First, let me say that my interest in La Tropa began with a question I posted at JuansTJ before I'd learned about ClubHombre, effectively asking, 'Are there any slim girls to be found in TJ these days? Or is the Mexican aesthetic still such that the kind of girl I'm looking for wouldn't even consider working cause she's not packing enough bad cholestorol and excess kilos?' [I excepted CC, where there *are* slim girls from time to time.]

The answers I got back - all 2 of them - recommended (1) La Tropa; and (2) Bar Tropical - "sometimes", in the afternoon shift, but that these girls didn't often go upstairs.

So this money-intensive thread has drifted well away from where I wanted it to go with my initial posts about La Tropa. I'm still poking around for that slim, trim adolescent look (and feel!) but I've basically given up hope...except among the crack users, who tend to forego a lot of meals. What a choice.

But here I go anyway, on your initial points, then it's basically case closed on money. Let's get back to girls!

You wrote:

>First off TJ is not part of a third world country.

Granted, TJ - or at least parts of it - isn't classifiable that way. But get a couple blocks away from the spots we know best and it's sure starting to look third-world again. If you focus on choices the girls have in how and where they spend their money, they live in-between. I've been in the $400 apartments the girls share in the ZN, and asked myself 'How do they do it? This is almost a state-side price.' Then I heard the math other guys were doing concerning the number of nights the girls worked, and the number of trips they made upstairs. But these girls can shop at third-world prices if they want to - and they do. You don't see them haggling on Revolucion on Sunday afternoons.

Remember we're talking about working girls, not the poor bastards trying to scrape by in 'normal' lifestyles. These girls are raking in relative fortunes if they're busy at all. And in the best possible way: they live on high-octane incomes in places where they can keep expenses down in many, many ways...almost the ex-pat's dream - to live in a third-world country on an American salary.

>It is an extension of the usa.

Yes, or maybe more properly, a strange brew of the two cultures, often bringing out the worst of both. I've seen this phenomenon in the Philippines as well, where there was a virtual border between the American bases and the surrounding PI territory. But nobody paid 6 months' rent for a night with a girl, let alone a short-time.

> Think about that before you reply with I am insane.

Ain't nobody here callin you insane except your own self! Seriously, no criticism, really, just that my more global view (I keep an apartment in Phnom Penh) gives me a different perspective, and I think I'm justifiably apalled at the the kind of money I'm hearing about La Tropa - the $90 bar fine in particular, but the $80 as well, which is higher even than CC, and double what can occasionally be had at AB. I'm still not clear on how much time the girls are offering for $80, so I'm suspending judgement there. If it's overnight, then it's a good price. If it's short-time, don't anybody tell the girls at AB or CC!

>The Cost of living in TJ is among the highest in Mexico.

What's interesting to me is that we pay the girls in US dollars, so they're not only immune to peso devaluations, but actually benefit by them, and in general have an easier time with cost-of-living problems. I mentioned above that it's interesting to look at the girls' situation apart from the general population. They have money - and choices - that others don't as prices climb.

And for 18 years - 1983 to 2000, maybe longer, $50 was the standard going price for a club girl in TJ, and no mention of the concept of a bar fine ever arose. All of a sudden the millenium turns over, and it starts springing up...at La Tropa (of all places!) and Miami. (I'm discounting cases where you're fined if you take a club girl to a non-affiliated hotel.)

And the high cost of living, as it affects a working girl (who can make purchases at local prices), isn't alleviated in any case if management takes the bar fine and just stuffs it in their collective pockets.

> If Thailand, Costa Rica, DR and those other places you mentioned were a border town of the usa the prices would be the same.

Same as $170 at La Tropa? Or $120 at Miami? Well, the cost does rise that way for real talent - San Jose's best, Rio's Help club, etc. The point is that, border or not, TJ was a $50 place like almost everywhere else until very recently and is still basically very close to being one. The real question is, 'What's with the price spiral at La Tropa?'

> These girls get paid well to do a dirty job.

We could start a whole new thread on this issue (not that I'm recommending it). I'm just going to say that when I'm in BKK, or the teens are rattling my gate in PNH begging to be let in to party, I don't get the feeling that the girls feel particularly 'dirty'. And for the 20 years I'd been going to TJ before I basically gave up on the place (for want of talent), the 'dirt' factor seemed to have been amply offset by the standard $50 price that was prevalent for most of those two decades. Now all of a sudden the dirt's dirtier, or the same money's not cutting it any more?

>They deserve every penny they make as it is hard earned.

Everybody deserves every penny they can get for the work they do. Work is fucked. But I don't expect to be paid triple for doing exactly the same thing as a guy around the corner from me - which in effect is what the $170 tab at La Tropa is doing, from my perspective as the person being asked to part with that kind of money.

>They have to give up a lot to do this.

In Mexico's quasi-Catholic, harsh, double-standard society, the girls don't have many options, it's true, especially young mothers abandoned by their childs' fathers. But when I see the CC girls bouncing along Coahuila on their way to work in groups of 3 or 4, laughing, dressed to kill, and catching everybody's eye on the street, I don't get a strong sense of 'loss' from that picture. They *look* like they're on top of the world - at least in their private social context. And of course all the plain-janes envy the christ out of them in many ways. And the CC girls are now typically $60, not $80, and a lot better looking than the La Tropa fare.

> Heck drug dealers & bums are given more respect than Whores in Mexico.

Mexico has the same problem with women as the Taliban do, very different in degree but not in kind. The same is true in Thailand, incidentally, or just about anywhere: sex is bad - in fact it's the *worst* (just examine how people curse). And women are the dirt bags, the temptresses, the 'vessels of sin' who lead men astray, so they're readily degraded. But as my previous point suggests, I don't see what a fluctuating bar fine at Miami, or an outrageous one at La Tropa, has anything to do with this.

It just smacks of another long-standing and well-known tradition, called larceny.

just an observation:

it seems that since 9/11, and the resulting drop off in tourism, many (if not all) the tourist businesses have gotten more expensive & less friendly. the operative attitude seems to be that if there is less business, we have to charge the remaining customers more to make up for it. supply & demand turned on its head.

in addition to the zona chicas, the meseros seem to be getting pushier, the street people more insistent, and the price of "specials" in the rev clubs are higher. even the restaurants are charging more.

it doesn't seem to help to suggest that us customers should hold our ground, too many guys seem to be proud of being overcharged. maybe the tj businesspeople have it right after all.

Hey Koro, it appears we share the same tastes in chicas. A couple you might check out are Olivia and Tania (the young one) at AB. Tania especially is very athletic.

"...the operative attitude seems to be that if there is less business, we have to charge the remaining customers more to make up for it. supply & demand turned on its head..."

The same as cigarettes. As fewer people smoke, the price of cigarettes has gone up. If your customers are addicts, then they'll pay almost any price to get their fix. Raising your price brings in more revenue because demand from addicts doesn't drop correspondingly. It's a fairly inelastic demand curve if there aren't available substitute products.

"...maybe the tj businesspeople have it right after all..." - If their customers are addicts, they do.

Does anyone know of a "substitute" for Tijuana's Zona Norte that matches it's legality, ease, and convenience at a lower price?

Regards,
RickFeliz

Koro said:

"at the risk of flogging this dead horse to a pulp, I'd like to add just a comment or two. Or more."

Me too. But that's cause I like S&M. So, here goes...

"First, let me say that my interest in La Tropa began with a question I posted at JuansTJ before I'd learned about ClubHombre, effectively asking, 'Are there any slim girls to be found in TJ these days?"

Um, I already created havoc with my comments on that on the threaded board, so I will pass on this part for now. I think it depends on each persons tastes, and definitions. What I may consider slim you may not.

"Ain't nobody here callin you insane except your own self!"

Well, and the guys in the white coats that are roaming the streets of TJ LOOKING for him!! Don't you hear them shouting "leche! leche!"

"...I think I'm justifiably apalled at the the kind of money I'm hearing about La Tropa - the $90 bar fine in particular...."

As a bar fine, I agree that is outragous.

"...but the $80 as well, which is higher even than CC, and double what can occasionally be had at AB"

Nope, now there I have to disagree. I think Jaime was the one who pointed out a couple of weeks ago that at CC it almost seems like price fixing - ask for a TLN price, and it is either $200 or $300. A few chicas ask more, but most name one of those two numbers.

I have recently paid $200 at CC, $250 at Adelitas, and $200 at Tropical.

"I'm still not clear on how much time the girls are offering for $80..."

I think that is the problem - you missed in the earlier posts that he was talking taking a chica away from the bar for the night to El Parador.

"And for 18 years - 1983 to 2000, maybe longer, $50 was the standard going price for a club girl in TJ, and no mention of the concept of a bar fine ever arose."

Again, I have to disagree. The Chicago Club was charging a bar fine in the early 1990's, and Adelitas was in the mid 1990's. Earlier than that I don't know of from personal experience.

Just to be clear - a bar fine is a fee the CLUB charges when you take a chicas away from the club to other than the affiliated hotel. CC is $20, AB is $10.

And there are several chicas at La Tropa that I would be happy to take for the night for $80, or even more than that.

I agree that $80 is a great price for an allnighter.

The problem is that huge BAR FINE that La Tropa attempts to extract.

Koro:

My experiences at Miami Bar and elsewhere have left me with the distinct impression that barfines are extremely arbitrary...

A chica's standing in the eyes of a particular bar manager, the manager's feelings toward a particular Hombre, and the immediate sentiments on any given evening (i.e., the relative mood) of the manager in question, all figure as rather subjective elements in the barfine equation...

I also do not mean to imply that barfines are unnecessary; unless a chica is the so-called "teacher's pet" of a manager in a particular bar-- or tal vez "la princesa,"-- she probably runs the risk of disciplinary action if she unilaterally bails-out during her shift...

That said, "unilateral bail-outs" can and do happen...

YoungBrig

Milkman:

Carlos does think he is a tough guy, and he also fancies himself a ladies-man; it was when I intruded on one of his little teenage ficha romances that he began giving me the evil eye...

However, lately I have softened somewhat towards him and have even come to empathize somewhat with him...As a manager myself in my professional life I can understand his difficulties in maintaining discipline along the personnel line...

Specifically, the whacko behavior and erratic attendance of his drug-addled teenage employees must be a real cause of heartburn...

My last two girls have both worked for him for extensive periods of time and, ultimately, they both say they have a lot of respect for him...I have lately begun to think that this respect is not necessarily unwarranted...I know that to an extent he tries to look out for the welfare of the girls-- for example, he will light-into a chica that drinks to the point that she cannot function...

One thing I do not understand, tho, is this: he's got to know that the chicas are doing drugs in the bano and in the changing rooms; if he rules with such an iron fist in Miami and Hk, how come he doesn't shut this particular activity down?...

YoungBrig

Pagan -

Thanks for the tips re Tania and Olivia. Had to laugh though, since there was a Legendary Tanya at AB for a couple years...maybe still there on occasion. I'd read the reports on ASPT, Redsnake and elsewhere, and would go down every week for a full year and a half asking the waiter Armando if Tanya - THE Tanya - was around. Got to be a great joke - I ended up bringing him souvenirs from Cambo, he'd slip me free beers for my sheer perstistence, but never once did I even get a peek. So goes it. Don't know whether she fits into my aesthetic profile, but she was supposedly the performer's performer. Wore a fannypack, everybody except me knew her, worked days a lot and never Wednesdays. But never around when I was. Now another Tania! Don't know if I can go through with the endless rounds again.

The trouble with really slim bajitas is that (a) you can't seem over the heads of the bigger girls, and (b) if they turn sideways, they vanish.

Anyway, if I'm in the hood, I'll look and I'll ask. Thanks again.

($50 and no barfine.)

DirtyOldMan: I'll just touch on a couple of your points.

******

I wrote (on JuansTJ): 'Are there any slim girls to be found in TJ these days?"

You replied: Um, I already created havoc with my comments on that on the threaded board, so I will pass on this part for now....What I may consider slim you may not.

Me, Koro: Two ways to define slim, one scientific, the other not. Science says 40 kgs is the upper threshold. Non-science says 'If she's working in TJ, she isn't slim.'

******

I wrote: ""...but the $80 as well, which is higher even than CC, and double what can occasionally be had at AB"

You wrote: "Nope, now there I have to disagree. I think Jaime was the one who pointed out a couple of weeks ago that at CC it almost seems like price fixing - ask for a TLN price, and it is either $200 or $300. A few chicas ask more, but most name one of those two numbers"

OK, this derives from the fact that I didn't know what $80 was buying. But I had the distinct impression it was short time. If not, I stand corrected, $80 is a great price. Assuming the coldness of their attitutudes in the club on my two visits doesn't extend to the hotel room.

But I guess it's time to have a chat with one of the likelier candidates at La Tropa and get the real, current low-down.

You also wrote, re overnights: "I have recently paid $200 at CC, $250 at Adelitas, and $200 at Tropical."

OK, so $10 to $20 went to management for offing the girl, the rest was hers, correcto? Yours to spend that way if you've got it, but it still boggles my mind. In Cambo, a fresh, pretty VN girling is $20 o/n max, so excuse me while I go into deep culture shock. I'm lucky enough to be able to travel there frequently, so I just look at the money being mentioned here as substantial parts of the $600 plane tix. I hope the girls treat you to $200 - $250 of terrific time, and that you're a satisfied guy. Coming from where I do - even though I'm based only 18 minutes from CC's front door - I just don't think any orgasm is worth that kind of money. A night of rollicking play with a pair of laughing VN bobby-soxers for $40, yessir! But not what I see around TJ for 5 or 6 times the price. Short-time, by the way, is $3-$5. I make the plane fare in a day's work, and it takes me a month to spend a week's earnings. Just so you understand my context.

*******

Yes, I'm aware that the bar fine is for taking the girl away from the affiliated bar. But strangely enough, I've been going to TJ for almost 20 years and have often left separately from the clubs with girls to distant hotels and never paid an extra nickel. The girls would sometimes use their fichas to pay the cab fare! So I know what the formalities are, but I also know they're broken all the time. Most were CC girls, they got me out of a lot of bar-fines. Youngbrig - take note: the girls knew how to break the rules, and they did - at least at CC. If they liked you, they wouldn't *let* you get hit for the b/f.

But DOM, thanks for pointing out that the $90 b/f at La Tropa was for La Parador, and that management knew what was going on. I thought it was simply to go short time upstairs to the ZN hotel for short time, the way the system works in Thailand.

I still maintain that TJ has traditionally been a $50 place, though. For 18 years I never packed more, and I had the run of both the free-lancer and club-fastened girls. I *never* spent more than $50, apart from the hotel room and a bit of a tip. I'm talking short time (which I don't particularly like, incidentally).

Oh, wrong-o. One of my greatest flings was a $60 girl I'd meet at a hotel in an alley on the north side of Coahuila on the way to La Tropa. For that money I got a simple room, 3 hours of non-stop oral and enough cristal to keep things rolling for that amount of time. She'd lick the powder off the edge of the credit card we used to crush the rock so the dogs wouldn't catch a whiff of it as I crossed la linea. But that was it - tops - for something in between short and long time.

So when I hang around the corners in the zona hoping/waiting to be approached by someone 'different', or swilling my Coke in the bars, my standard reply to 'Que quieres?' is 'Solamente un milagro. Como tu, por ejemplo? Quieres tomar algo?' But it hasn't happened in a long time, and I guess it isn't gonna at La Tropa.

I have never paid for sex in TJ

I pay her for going away when it's over.

Some more than others

Yes, of course. "We don't pay to have sex with them, we pay them to go away afterwards." Been there, heard that.

Doesn't work on my stateside GF, by the way. In fact it keeps her coming back.