Hannah B.
Yelp
My journey with Turbo Haüs is a complicated one; brace yourself. When they originally opened in St Henri my partner and I were delighted: a cool, unpretentious, affordable and punk-friendly spot was now a couple blocks away from us and it didn't involve a lot of the BS you find at Fattal. We even became members. Unfortunately that impression wouldn't last long. After going to many shows at TH I started having the recurring problem of being pushed out of mosh pits. For being a girl. Not a problem I generally have. One night, at a particularly silly pop punk show, some guys kicked me out of the pit and told me flat out "no girls in the pit.". I told them where to go and then decided, since this is a recurring problem, to go talk to the owner/manager at the bar. He abruptly told me it wasn't his effin' problem.
We decided to stop going.
Fast forward a couple years later and TH is at a new and shinier location in the Quartier Latin. My friends who live in the area started raving about how much fun they were having there. Additionally they reassured me that the new female management had turned things around: example: tampons in the bathrooms and friendly ladies slinging beers. I decided to give it another try and really enjoyed hanging out in the bar space: the prices were excellent, the staff were nice and atmosphere was a perfect balance of hip and chill. Needless to say, I was still hesitant about attending any shows.
Last night I finally gave it a stab. As luck would have it, some jerk projectiled me out of the pit early in the evening; I watched him and three other dudes do the same to any other woman that came even close to the front. I can't believe it's 2019 and I still have to complain about places like this. At one point I overheard another woman shout, "what is this, 1999?!". Listen, Turbo Haüs, I get it- you want to make this place feel like a house show with little rules and no security. The thing is, you're a real business with an obligation to not having your patrons feel like garbage because of their gender, ability, orientation, race, etc. If this was a house show we could just kick guys like that out ourselves; this is a real business and that's on you. We need you to step up to the plate and make sure jerks like those ones stop ruining it for everyone else. Maybe it's time to get a door thug.
Final gripe: I've never been impressed with a venue that allows the places to be filled with promoters flashing cameras in everyone's face. They do affect a show and they are annoying. Try and exercise some caution with how many Grimey reps you let in your show.