Amusing Business Stories

[Claire Dymond]

Sometimes we need to chill a bit away from our VAT returns, difficult clients etc so here's an opportunity to tell your amusing stories.

I had a shop in the late 1990s which was leased from the council and had a visit from the council to ask me to close my brothel in the flat above the shop, well I would have done if I had known I was running a brothel. I had rented the flat to what I thought was a respectable woman whose references all checked out and was a very well behaved tenant who always paid on time.

I actually found the incident quite amusing as did the guy from the council who was quite laid back about it and told me that a wife had followed her husband and watched him go into the flat.

I asked the 'madam' if she would mind moving on not from my own moral point of view (I think they should be legal) but because running a business was not allowed in the lease.

The next set of tenants were a nightmare and I wished the brothel could have stayed.

 

[thelegalstop]

I hope to read many interesting stories here I am sure everyone has at least one, but for now I will keep quiet, waiting for the greatest stories go first.

 

[Digbeth Court]

Many years ago, while working as assistant manager of a fairly popular pub, we had a little secluded back room that we used to let people book for small functions (i.e. community meetings, family get-togethers, etc) in return for a nominal fee. One group - a book club - arranged with us to use the room on the first Saturday afternoon of every month for the foreseeable future, and we happily agreed, glad for the regular custom.

On first sight, they looked the average book club bunch - middle-aged, middle-class folk with a friendly attitude - but in their first few meetings, something always seemed a little off. Whenever I went in to serve them food, there were very few books in evidence, and the discussions they were having seemed, at best, quite raunchy.

And then came the day I walked into the room with a steaming hot plate of curry, to find one of the "book club" gents brandishing a whip, with a bewildering array of chains, ropes, handcuffs and assorted sex toys laid out on the tables in front of a lot of beaming middle-aged faces.

Yes, our "book club" was in fact a BDSM swingers group meeting to discuss (though thankfully not physically indulge) their interest inside our pub. After my initial shock, and a good old chuckle about the ways of the world, I had a blazing row with the boss over whether they should be allowed to continue using our premises. I argued that though getting their "equipment" out (so to speak) was definitely out of order, there was no harm in consenting adults discussing their pastime in private while sticking money in our tills. The boss insisted that, private room or not, it was a family-friendly pub and their presence could jeopardise our reputation. A tricky situation compounded by the fact that business had been iffy recently, and any money seemed like good money.

We compromised that the swingers should be allowed to stay, as long as they confined their activity on the premises purely to discussion in private, and all "toys" and suchlike were left at home. They gratefully agreed, and nine months later gave us a Christmas card saying "Thank you! None of the other pubs let us stay any longer than six weeks!"