help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
I have been working at this club for three years and about a week ago the owner decided that we should start going nude on stage. We have been raided twice in the last three years and there is talk about another raid in the next couple of weeks. The city that I work in it is against the law to go nude where alcohol is present, if we don't go nude we get a $10 dollar fine every night. Plus we are not allowed to go on the main stage, there are three stages, but the other two you don't get as much exposure. This is driving me insane any help on what I should do would be great.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
the only help I can give you is advice - move to a different club fast.
If this clubowner is willing to risk his liquor license, it's pretty obvious that he's in money trouble. Of course his grand plan may actually be to offer nudity plus alcohol as long as he can get away with it to draw in extra customers. Then when the dancers are busted and the club loses it's liquor license, it's a shoo-in that the club will probably switch to full nude with a juice bar. At this point the clubowner can then pressure dancers to provide high contact private dances and "extras" to boost club income.
It's extremely unfortunate that most laws wind up charging the dancers but not the clubowner. But it does explain why your clubowner can so readily encourage the dancers to break the law - if the club is busted it will be the dancers and not the clubowner who are going to be charged for "excessive exposure". This situation puts dancers between a rock and a hard place, basically being forced to bend the law on a nightly basis in order to earn a reasonable amount of money and all the time looking over your shoulder wondering if the customer who just walked in is actually an undercover cop. All I can say is that you are not alone. But your club's situation is truly unique in one aspect - it's the first time I've ever heard of a club fining dancers for NOT breaking the law!
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
I see two (2) big issues here:
1) Breach of contract with the club. Dancer's signed-on given certain rules- one of which being it's a non-nude club. Is nudity required anywhere else in this club? Such as a 2nd floor or elsewhere? If not, then there is a severe breach of contract as dancers hired on are now being assumed to make the jump from non-nude to nude. Forget the laws and legal requirements- pretend the place decided to sell soda pop and stay within legal limits- it's coercive and a breech of contract to assume the dancers can make the jump to nude.
2) Personal risk. I'm not so sure this second concern may be valid as, at least in most regions that I'm aware of, the nude->alcohol limitations always place accountibility on the club, not the performers. i.e. it's gambling against a club's liquor license to have any form of nudity within proximity of alcohol sales. A raid in these conditions would leave 0 risk to the dancers (provided the nudity is indeed on-stage and doesn't fall into any possibly local obscenity laws), but risk the club managers be cited and likely have their liquor license suspended or revoked.
In either case, having legal representation is a must, and I'd recommend looking for another club to work for. I'm assuming your club has NO nude requirements whatsoever before- a massive format change such as is being implied shows management that is only likely to do even worse in the future. What's next.. locked bedrooms with condom dispensers? It's pretty mortifying to hear managers would expect a staff of non-nude dancers to just transition into full-nude at the snap of fingers... and put penalization policies in place at the same time.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
i would recommend go look for another place!
a clubowner diregarding the law like this isn't trustworthy in my opinion. i personally could not work under such circumstances. this can be the beginning of a downward spiral.
even if a raid isn't affecting the dancers... you will be in there, they will have you "on the list" for next time.
i also think that the owner seems to be in trouble. in any case, look for another club
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
This is of course the one sucessful formula, (or should I say more sucessful formula if there is one) in the business.
Full nude, full bar, clean facilities. Better is new or rehabbed facilities.
The formula doesn't work if the local city doesn't alow full nude. Openly challenging the city government and it's police department usually doesn't work. There will sooner or later be a change in the Mayors office or the City Council will pressure the PD to "DO SOMETHING" about the strip club downtown that is going full nude.
Depends on the area of the country as there are certain areas that
are supposed to be topless only and are in reality full nude, and have been for four or five years, even when the laws on the books never changed from topless ( with liquorer license).
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
The other girls entries give really valuable information. If you are friends with a lot of other girls at your club, you could get together and quietly decide to dance by the same rules as you were before. $10 doesn't seem like a lot per night to lose.
All in all, I would say switch clubs and don't make a big deal about it. Tell ALL your regulars where you will be appearing and make a quiet exit.
I am not comfortable with full nude either. If you stand back and look at the situation without considering your ties to the club, you will see its a pretty easy choice.
I am sorry this is going on and good luck with the future.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
Are you in Memphis? Nudity is technically illegal there but every club is nude. Girls get citations if Vice comes in and they are nude, but no jail time.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
thank you everyone for the advice. I work at skybox in Harvey Il. Nude dancing is allowed in the vip. The reason why the club owner is doing this is because our "sister" club, cowboys has nude girl on girl shows nightly on stage and eventually wants us to start doing that. The only problem with this is the clubs are in different districts and we are a much more upscale club than the other. This just started about a week ago, not to many girls were partitipating except for a few of the dirtier girls. On Friday since we were not participating the owner brought in 6 of his best girls from the sister club. They were rotated two by two for a half hour doing very obscene illegal things, which made all of our girls upset. The last four songs all six girls went on stage butt naked and were performing sexual activites to each other, self stimulation, and sticking thier private areas practically in every guys face!!! When we got raided last time and went to court the judge said NO self stimulation, and you have to stay at least a foot away while receiving tips on stage.
I have been working at this club for three years, house fees are outrageous, between $173 and $223 a night! For some reason I am extremely comfortable. I have never worked anywhere else and am afraid if I go somewhere else i wont do as good. I guess you could say this place is like home, but my home is turning into the projects :'( if this keeps up I just might hae to move to a bigger better neighborhood. Thanks again to everyone.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
To put this in perspective, if you do wind up busted for 'lewd conduct' or 'prostitution' for stage shows or contact with customers (and yes two dancers having sexual contact on stage between each other while a stageside customer tips them CAN be considered as prostitution) you're liable to be charged with a misdemeanor, involving at a minimum $500 in bail + $500 in legal fees + $500 in fines + probably a year's worth of probation (plus of course spending the night you are busted in the city/county lockup). Also keep in mind that cops are usually not all that selective in choosing certain sleazy dancers to charge but not charging certain other clean dancers ... usual practice is to bust every girl in the club and let the judge sort it out. If you are busted, even if you are later found innocent on appeal, the record of the bust may in fact prevent you from working in a club in a "bigger better neighborhood" if that neighborhood requires dancers licenses !
If the club is not only encouraging current dancers to break the state liquor laws by going full nude and being closer than the minimum distance to customers, but is blatantly importing dirty dancers to perform acts on stage which are in blatant violation of state and local lewd conduct and/or prostitution laws, you can imagine what these girls are probably providing customers in the VIP room. If you stay in this club not only do you risk being busted right along with them, but you'll soon be faced with a decision to be just as sleazy as they are in order to sell private dances to customers who know what they can get from some other dancers in the way of contact, or risk not earning enough to cover the house fee.
As your club is in an upscale neighborhood, and as the local judge has already gone on record telling the club owner what is NOT permissible by law during a previous incident, the odds are really high that when the club is busted again that the judge is not going to be so understanding.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
I think Harvey is in Cook County? I don't know who raided you the last time but Cook County Sheriffs Dept. is notorius for doing raids right around election time for Sheriff. Then they forget about everything for
four years. The Sheriff covers the entire county and can force Harvey PD to partipate, or (since Cook County is much larger) can ignore the Harvey PD entirely if he wants to. It's not like Memphis where total nude is really there and not much enforcement. On the other hand, the owner has recognized what he's got to do in the new SC environment, and he is correct. The formula that seems to work is full nude dances,
full bar, clean facilities. Contact is not necessary if he has the other three.
Just may not be possible anywhere near Chicago and that includes of course Cook County. The owner may find that he needs to put his club on wheels and wheel it down I39 or up I90 to Wisconsin.
Just look up when the next major Cook County election is due and that will give you an approximate time limit of how long this "new plan" will last. I am too far away and not much interested in what happens in Cook County or Chicago, since where I live I can ignore it.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
Quote:
Originally Posted by nicolette link=board=27;threadid=6747;start=msg75498#msg7549 8 date=1077219179
thank you everyone for the advice. I work at skybox in Harvey Il. Nude dancing is allowed in the vip. The reason why the club owner is doing this is because our "sister" club, cowboys has nude girl on girl shows nightly on stage and eventually wants us to start doing that. The only problem with this is the clubs are in different districts and we are a much more upscale club than the other. This just started about a week ago, not to many girls were partitipating except for a few of the dirtier girls. On Friday since we were not participating the owner brought in 6 of his best girls from the sister club. They were rotated two by two for a half hour doing very obscene illegal things, which made all of our girls upset. The last four songs all six girls went on stage butt naked and were performing sexual activites to each other, self stimulation, and sticking thier private areas practically in every guys face!!! When we got raided last time and went to court the judge said NO self stimulation, and you have to stay at least a foot away while receiving tips on stage.
I have been working at this club for three years, house fees are outrageous, between $173 and $223 a night! For some reason I am extremely comfortable. I have never worked anywhere else and am afraid if I go somewhere else i wont do as good. I guess you could say this place is like home, but my home is turning into the projects :'( if this keeps up I just might hae to move to a bigger better neighborhood. Thanks again to everyone.
IL is the last place you want to get busted for this. If you do this, you will most likely be hit with some kind of prostitution charge. The house fees are outrageous...and not to be rude, but Skybox is a dive. There are a lot better clubs in IL to work that are more dancer friendly and upscale.
You shouldn't even be asking this question...just leave that place!!
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
I just got in a debate with my legal/tactical advisor over my last comment. Legal says Cook County LE wandering into an Illinois municipality (think city) isn't going to happen as cities are very
strong legal entities in this state, usually more so than counties.
Much different than the south where counties are very powerful.
If Harvey is a full fledged city instead of an Illinois Village, the county might not come in. However, if a judge (read another posters issue)
makes and issue out of it, the sheriffs department is a direct agent of the court system and could be given jurisdiction and over ride the city,
especially a small city like Harvey for a raid. That's tactical side speaking up. In short... the answer becomes "It depends." Still maintain that this type of direct challenge to local government (not sure which one of course) will result in an early end to this experiment. Try not to get caught up between the two elephants fighting each other.
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
Its your ass, honey. Its your ticket, just because there may not be jail time does not mean that it looks impressive on the record! Run like hell!
Re:help club owner is pushing us girls to do illegal activities
Harvey is considered the ghetto out on southern cook co. Skybox is well known for being pretty sleazy. If you aren't one to fall in with the "extra's" crowd, there are alot of other clean clubs in the Chicago area to go to and make just as much, if not more money.