The owners of a bar in Pittsburgh known for its wild pool parties have closed their venue’s doors until further notice after a video of one guest’s unhinged behavior went viral.
A clip that ran rampant across social media in recent days showed a woman having a bottle inserted into her vagina in front of a crowd of shocked onlookers at the Foxtail/Skybar club. It’s not clear exactly when the incident took place. But on Tuesday, the venue’s management put a statement on their website and Instagram account saying the party was over for the foreseeable future.
“The safety and health of our guests and staff is our number one priority,” the statement read. “After careful consideration, the owners of Foxtail/Skybar have decided to pause operations at the venue until further notice. The climate for operating a night time economy business in the South Side has regressed to the point of being unstable and has led to a customer base that is problematic.”
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The statement added that the bar would “look forward to rejoining the community once a solution to the issues plaguing our neighborhood has been successfully implemented.” The venue did not mention the viral video in its statement on the closure.
But local District Justice Eugene Ricciardi addressed the lewd clip directly with local media reporting on the bar’s shuttering. “That is an embarrassment. That video went viral across the United States,” Ricciardi told WPXI. “We have people in Florida that saw that video. What does that say about us?”
He added that he’d spoken with the bar owner directly, saying it would be “closing until we can get everything under control. I asked him and he agrees to drain the swimming pool on the third floor.”
Ricciardi even went so far as to call for the South Side of Pittsburgh to be declared in a state of emergency over spiraling crime in the area.
At a community meeting last month, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey assured South Side residents and business owners that he was committed to public safety, but cautioned that the neighborhood’s problems were entrenched and unable to be solved with instant fixes. “This is 20 years in the making,” Gainey said of the area’s crime wave at the meeting, WESA reports. “This is not going to be something that is solved tomorrow.”
