Getting Stabby at Greenhouse

If bad things truly happen in threes, then expect something awful next week to occur at the eco-friendly green machine called Greenhouse. One of the most successful nightclubs out there right now, Greenhouse was hit last week with a billion-dollar lawsuit. What wasn't widely understood was the suit was about an incident that occurred on August 6. Racism charges flew fast and furious as author Teri Woods claimed her guests were turned away because they were black or fat or both, I guess, depending on the guest. A source close to the action tells me that her party was arranged by a promoter named "Village" and that a verbal agreement allowed her to have 50 guests before 11pm. No one can say whether Mr. Village conveyed the club's terms to Ms. Woods.

Minority owner (as in, he owns a very small percentage of the place) Barry Mullineaux, according to sources, actually texted Ms. Woods explaining that her guests were too fat. When will people learn that texts and e-mails are forever? Nothing surprises me in this business, and I am on record saying the door at Greenhouse is run extremely poorly, but there’s probably three sides to every story in clubland. Sources inside Greenhouse pointed out that “three of the five owners of Greenhouse are African American.” They are my friends Merlin Bob, Timmy Regisford, and John Best. Jon B(akhshi) is Persian and Barry Mullineaux is Caucasian, although you might have to squint past the egg on his face to see that. It was Barry who did a favor for his friend “Village” back in August.

My club source claims that it was supposed to be 50 people before 11 and 2 tables and free booze. “She paid no fees, and at least 30 of her people made it inside” before the poorly dressed folks precipitated a ruckus. A Greenhouse player offered, “We are a high-end nightclub which is proud of our mix of people. We are more racially mixed than any high-end club in New York. Woods promised a well-dressed crowd, and many people did dress. Those that weren’t dressed were turned away. We knew it was going to be a mostly African American crowd when we booked it. Everybody knew that ... race wasn’t the issue. Her guests were poorly dressed and were denied, and then she went nuts and that was that.”

Another source tells me that between August 6 and the filing of the billion-dollar suit, Ms. Woods asked for an undisclosed amount of money “to make this all go away.” The club, I am told, will now countersue and has evidence enough, they say, to “win big.” Will they counter for a billion or merely some hundreds of millions? My source says the club will sue to prevent a “rash of copycat lawsuits and to stop the slander”; another source hinted that indeed “another lawsuit is hovering, and papers may be served as early as today.”

Despite reports in respected blogs, Greenhouse did not close after incident number two—a stabbing inside, in the wee wee hours of a Sunday morning. That Sunday night, Kenny Kenny and Suzanne Bartsch’s “Fashion Gay” weekly was packed. The irony is that the stabbing occurred at the mostly black and mixed gay/straight weekly Saturday late-night party. It is also strange that, although the incident occurred two Sundays ago, it was not widely reported until the Terri Woods scandal. The stabbing could have happened anywhere, as a jealous man followed his lover/ex-lover to the club and attacked the dude de noir. He could have caught up to them at a deli or a Holiday Inn, as he seemed to be very determined. So the club is sued for not letting African Americans in, and then there’s an incident at a weekly party that caters mostly to African Americans the next week. Whew. Am I missing something? The only thing we know for sure is that the dude who stabbed and the dude attacked and the girl of both their dreams must have been nicely dressed.