shoot yourself in the cash register
now everyone can see why all the pool rooms are closing when you have owners like these.
Some room owners just have to have Control, no matter how they work it. Or what it costs them.
At one large room I thought was a great customer, along with several others very much like me. Thoug we only showed up one day each month, we put a grand or more into the till and the staff pockets between the four, five or six of us. The small group of which I was a regular member always brought a roll of cash to party with. We each spend $50-100 on pool, food and drinks for myself over my twelve or more hour visit, and spent at least that much again tipping the wait and cook staff. Then there were the bets... and the bookie action... and eveything else actionable.
The owner did not like our group's popularity with his staff at all, not one small bit, and many times verbally treated one or several of us with great disrespect. I saw what a paranoid, small person he was early on, and never after let him get my goat.
There was a crowd of railbirds, penniless hangers-on, that showed up the one day per month designated as some sort of semi-official gamblers meeting day. Four big corner Diamond tables were taken over by guys playing for $200 and up (no one else in the room wantedto play on those Diamond 9-ft tables, it was a 7 and 8 foot table league crowd).
Twenty of these guys would stand around, filching french fries off someone else's plate, mooching soft drinks, checking for a small loan here and there... and watching players with money or with backers try to make a game. Usually these guys were too broke to bet anything; they would at most buy a bottle of water or a candy bar for a buck each, over the course of six or seven hours. The wait staff served them but got no tips, or next to nothing in tips, but never seemed to mind because in general it was a big tip day.
Eventually the room owner ran everyone who came for 'gambling day' off, leaving only league players in his joint. The next month when I drove my hundred miles for 'gambling day' action, the place was a tomb - he had kicked out not only the poor railbirds but also the generous players and gamblers who spent one or two hundred each on pool, food, and drinks, then another similar amount on tips, each and every time they showed up. The room owner had started opening later in the day, and reduced the hours for food service, trying to discourage trade that included those twenty poor railbirds.
He also got rid of the four 9 foot Diamonds that were the real draw for the gamblers, and put back in four 9-ft home made tables, tables that were not too bad, but were not Diamonds.
I hope he did not reduce his revenue so much that he hurt his staffing situation. I know when his ball cleaner broke he didn't get it fixed, instead he added that chore to the toilet cleaning and table washing chores already burdening a wait staff paid under-minimum-wage (because the were supposed to be only waiting on tables, and not doing the work of hourly employees.)
Last I looked, the place was in business, but with the reduced hours, reduced meal service, lesser quality big tables, and no longer would players and backers drive a hundred miles and more, or fly in from another state, just to be in action on one day per month.