Vancouver strip club's X account suspended over cheeky marquee message

The marquee at The Penthouse strip club in downtown Vancouver is known for its edgy comments 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 laugh, our friends laugh,” said Penthouse bar manager Benjamin Jackson.

“First one went up, it went viral, and we just kept going.”

But the man behind the marquee never expected his latest message would be labelled hate speech on social media.

“It’s shocking to me. It's ridiculous to be honest,” said Jackson, who came up with the cheeky “Forever Neighbours, Never Neighbors “ message in response to Donald Trump wanting Canada to become the 51st state.

“It's a play on words for the spelling of neighbour,” he explained. Canada spells neighbour with a 'U', while America does not.

Penthouse owner Danny Filippone said it’s a message about how Canadians are feeling about the threats from the incoming president.

“‘Never Neighbors’ is we're always going to be neighbours with the States, but we're never going to be neighbours to them in the sense that they want, right?” said Filippone.

The sign was put up early Wednesday morning and immediately generated buzz.

“This one we knew was going to hit a few nerves,” said Filippone.

But hours after Jackson posted a photo of the new marquee on social media, his friends messaged him to say the club’s X account was blocked. It now reads: “@ThePenthouse604 is temporarily unavailable because it violates the X hateful profile policy”.

"It's shocking to me. It's ridiculous," said Jackson.

The club's owner is dumbfounded. “Whatever happened to freedom of speech? I mean, this is far from hatred,” said Filippone.

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 was like, ‘no, this is the best thing that could have happened to us realistically.’ The sign obviously was going to get good traction, but having the suspension as well has added to the story,” said Jackson.

There’s an order for 100 “Forever Neighbours, Never Neighbors” t-shirts and a Penthouse marquee coffee table book is now in the works.

“Last night, I literally had a bidding war with three publishers who wanted to do the book,” said Filippone.

While the exposure has been great, Jackson does hope the club’s X account is restored soon.

“I believe over the next day or two, somebody will review it, realize that it's clearly not a hate speech situation, and then give us our account back,” he said.

But the message on the marquee will remain.