Guest W***ledi*Time Report post Posted September 10, 2010 Kristy Brownlee reports for QMI, 9 Sep 2010: http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2010/09/09/15299801.html At 85 years old and hard of hearing, Pierre Cochard still enjoys watching young ladies twirl around the pole at his iconic peeler parlour. "I still come in for an hour a day," Cochard said with a grin. More than 40 years have passed since Chez Pierre opened -- and protests, a basement blaze and prostitution charges didn't shut him down. But Cochard can't always be the strip king. "I never thought he would one day run the Chez Pierre," Cochard said, as he sat next to his 21-year-old grandson Jesse in the crimson-lit club Wednesday evening. "I don't want to be here when I'm 90," Cochard said. Jesse manages the bar, and its eight strippers, while juggling part-time management studies classes at Grant MacEwan University. "I don't want the club to interfere with his studies. That's what's most important," Cochard said from below his grey fedora. He reminisces when the cabaret opened -- Edmonton's first nude dancing bar. "People never saw a naked woman on the stage. We started with pasties but they fell off when they were dancing," a smiling Cochard said. In the beginning, the city wasn't ready for a peeler bar. Churchgoers across the street protested, even attempting to nail the door shut with two-by-fours. In 1986, Pierre and his now ex-wife Darlene, a dancer, were acquitted of running a common bawdy house. The trial drew national media attention after police officers testified they were regular customers at the club - watching strippers, buying lap dances and mud wrestling with dancers. The club's rich history leaves Jesse in awe. He remembers being five or six years old and driving by the bar on 105 Street and 100 Avenue, asking his father, "What's nude table dancing?" "It's in my family's blood," said Jesse, who grew up in Salmon Arm, B.C. "The legacy is there. Even if they don't know (Pierre), they know of him," he said. Jesse's father Darcy worked as a doorman in the early '80s. His uncle Barton managed off and on for years, but overdosed in his apartment above the club last November. The reins have since been handed to Jesse, a young but mature man with a keen business sense. "I do all the hiring, all the firing," said Jesse, while seated in a plush chair as a brunette dancer spins around a golden pole on stage. Jesse admits he sometimes gets strange looks from customers and classmates when they find out he calls the shots at the cabaret. "It's a little bit weird. But it's a pretty good job to have for a 21-year-old man." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
capitalman 3861 Report post Posted September 10, 2010 The kid must drink Dos Equis. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SmartnSexy 2089 Report post Posted September 10, 2010 All I can say is: /jealous Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
