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Thread: is this legal?

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default is this legal?

    At my club, a few times a year, we are required to do charity dances. Announce the charity, the customer buys the dance and we donate the money to charity. I'm fine with that. However, now our charity dance is combined with a raffle. We are selling raffle tickets for $25 apiece. The prize is a Firari and the proceeds go to charity. Still fine with that. But lately we have been doing charity dances in which we have to buy the ticket for $25 and they announce the charity dance and if the customer buys 2 couch dances, they get the raffle ticket free. So essentially, we make $7 per dance during this and we do it twice a night. If you don't sell the dances you have been able to return the ticket. BUT NOW, as of last night, we have to buy the ticket, wheter we sell the dances or not. Is this right? Is this legal? I have never NOT sold the dances, but some girls are not so lucky and are essentially paying $50 a night extra to purchase raffle tickets they don't want and the justification is "well, it goes to charity." ??? What do you think?

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    Veteran Member Naomi_Tx's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I understand your suspicions. I'm not much of a legal buff, Alanna's one to ask, but I do know that you are entitled to a receipt for every charitable contribution you make for tax write offs. These receipts should name the specific charity so that you can call and inquire about the actual amount they're receiving from the club.

    I worked for Yellow Rose in Austin for a couple years, the GM Don King (no relation) is big on breast cancer charity, we'd do car washes and donation parties; but it was strictly voluntary.

    Charity is good PR for strip clubs as it may keep city council at bay; but this sounds shady to me. Get all of your receipts and call and speak with whom ever is in charge of receiving donations from your club, tell her you want to confirm where your money is going. I wouldn't give real name.

    Keep us updated.


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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Basically you are required by this club,

    as a condition of employment,

    to buy a charity raffle ticket(s) during each shift- is that correct ???

    And you can resell it along with your services for a small profit if you want ( or can )

    but nonetheless you are required to partake in the "charity" event, right?

    No way- can't be legal . :-/

  4. #4
    Pamela
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I don't see this as right, legal ? Hmmm, bordering maybe not so. And i never heard of "having" to buy the tickets even if you sell dances or not.

    That can turn out to be a big lose for some dancers, and leaving with alot less money that they even walked in the door with. I would question this behaviour.

    First off....Tigerlilly brings up a good point, no one can be forced to partake in a charity event.

    Pamela


  5. #5
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    In Colorado, there would be two problems:

    1) It puts the club in an employment relationship rather than a contractor relationship.

    2) You cannot run a raffle without a raffle license. Goes against the gambling laws. I don't quite understand in this case if the club is running the raffle or being a middleman for the tickets. But if the club is selling tickets for someone else, that's not a good situation. You can't force someone to work for free. If you were on a salary, that would be different. They're basically telling you to work and pay your income elsewhere.

    The question is one of practicality - whether you feel that the stink that you could raise is work the potential consequences. But you would be solidly in the right to question the propriety of it all.

    - Jason

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I wrote our owner this letter and left it on his desk this morning:
    Dear Al,
    I know you haven’t asked for my opinion and probably don’t want it, as you have probably heard lots of opinions on this matter. But I would really appreciate you allowing me to voice my concerns to you about the charity/Ferrari dances. And let me acknowledge that I may be wrong in my facts or opinions, and if that is so, and you could clear that up for me, I’d be happy to explain to the other girls who are doing a lot of dressing room bitching over this, how it is justified.
    First of all, I think that the legality of doing them at all is questionable. Even if we were employees, versus Independent Contractors, I don’t think employers can require employees to donate to a particular charity, even if they may be required to participate in charitable events. This doesn’t really bother me; you always pick worthy charities and I don’t mind participating, but can you require us to participate?
    So far though, we have had some incentive for doing this, because if we sold the ticket during the charity dance, we made some money. Please realize though that even doing it this way, was quite a donation on our part. When we pay $25 for a ticket and then give it away for the customer purchasing two dances, we are only making $7.50 per dance. Doing this for 4 dances a shift is hard.
    But now that we have to buy the tickets, regardless of if we sell them or not, has been financially disastrous for some girls. I have not ever NOT sold mine during a charity dance, so I’m not complaining on my own behalf. But the girls who cannot sell theirs feel as though they are suddenly paying the house $100 per night, instead of $50.
    I am just honestly curious what the motivation was for switching to this policy. I am sincerely open to listening if you are willing to explain it to me or us. Right now, though, when we don’t know the justification, the girls feel unappreciated and as though they are being taken advantage of in an illegal way. Thank you for listening to my concerns. I just wanted to say what was on my mind rather than whining behind closed doors. I still think Al’s is a great place to work and appreciate your effort to make it that way for us.
    With All Due respect,

    Mary

    He called me down to the office and said
    1. He is sure that it is legal, because we agree when we sign our contracts to abide by the club rules and this is a rule.
    2. He described in more detil the charities that are benefitting to assure me that it was for a good cause.
    3. He said that he wanted to make it clear that the house is not getting any more money each night, because it goes to charity.
    4. We usually have to do similar merchandise dances, which have been put on hold for the duration of this charity thing, so actually, he is losing money from not selling his merchandise each night.
    5. It is important to contribute to the community for the inherit goodness of doing so, but also because the city is reexamining adult use codes and will be more likely to stick with the status quo if Al's continues to be a positive contributor to good community causes.

    I did feel better after talking to him and can see both sides of the issue, but still a little confused about whether he can or should make us do this.

  7. #7
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Well, you can't sign away a legal right. If you sign a paper saying you agree to be a slave, or your boss can kill you, or you contract to perform illegal acts, then that contract is not enforceable.

    So if he changes the club rules to say, "You will work for free," then there would be a serious question about whether it's an illegal rule.

    But I'm not trying to stir up trouble. If you are OK with all this, then why make a fuss? But if you're not completely OK, you could write back something like this:

    "Al, thanks for explaining this. I appreciate the worthy causes that I'm being told to donate to, so I don't have a serious problem with what's going on right now. But please let us know if something is coming up that requires even more free work from us, because I think there's only so much free work that you can legally require, and I just want to make sure we're all being reasonable with each other. Plus I know that some of the girls are going to suffer a real financial hardship from this."

    Or something like that? Maybe?

    - Jason

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    Senior Member m's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    can or should i would think to be 2 different questions enitrely; one legal one ethical. taking jason's statement about practicality one step futher...everything is legal untill someone contests it to the powers that be and proves otherwise. sounds to me as if you are being forced to pay for their tax writeoff because they know it will go unchallenged.
    btw new ferrari or old? 100-200k charitable donation i would think to be a bit high for the revenues that they are probably claiming.

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Yeah, my husband said, "let me know when he starts requireing you peorm bjs as a condotion of your contract." Here's how the raffle is working. Al's and five other bars in our block purchased a Ferrari valued at $50,000. They are selling 4000 raffle tickets at $25 each. The proceeds will be split between 2 local charities, one for teminally ill children and the other for the family of a police officer killed in the line of duty. The problem is, while our club is selling about 30 tickets a night, the other bars are selling little to none. So Al feels an obligation to pick up the slack to get these tickets sold so the charities that are counting on the money will get it. Which is admirable, but it is HIS commitment, not ours. Do I want to cause a fuss? No; I hope we sell all the tickets and help relieve the suffering of some people in our community. But I don't think we should have to but the tickets ourselves. I don't know if I will talk to Al again or not. Thanks for your help.

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default One more question

    Is this a tax deductable charitble contribution for the individual dancers? When we donate our dances or when we buy the tickets?

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    Senior Member m's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    i would think the purchase of the ticket is the transaction but not sure. same $ can only be deducted once from what i know but i'm no cpa. i would think since the club has the obvious paper-trail they will claim the deduction. my guess is that you are given no receipt and therefor have no proof of charitble donation. Even with proof i would think you could only claim a % of the ticket price since they spent 50K on the car and will give 100k to the charity and you are reselling them to a customer for a discounted price. i am not sure what you can deduct if anything...talk to a cpa, they would know more than i ever want to about these things.

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    Featured Member NikkiD's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I write charity dances off on my taxes. It is legal in WA as long as its for charity. On our charity dances, the dancers, once again, gets screwed. It is in our contract that we will take part in all specials and promotions of the club..... bastards!


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    Senior Member JustaGirl's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I would ask for a receipt. I have claimed every single table/couch dance fee charged from the bar that I have ever worked. Screw them. I basically quit the biz due to what couch dancing led to, and damed if I'm the one who's going to be grinding some guy while the club takes a fee. I claim those club fees on my taxes.

    On the legality issue - ANYTHING outside of state/city laws that the club makes up makes you an employee. They legally cannot tell you what you can and cannot wear, control your work schedule, etc and still call you an independent contractor, although they do.

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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Unless you are paid by the hour , you are considerd an independent contractor they can nt legaly make you do anything, but clubs do have there own rules and if you dont want to abide by them than they can let you go,I worked at a club were a girl was fired because she didnt work the three day a week the club reqired, so she got a laywer and a class action siute was filed on her behalf, they also sent me a letter while I was working there to see if I wanted to paricipate,theyre theory was that she was reqiured back pay for all the hours she did work if they were to require her to work a certain amount of shifts, they did win the suit, but obviously none will ever be allowed back to work,clubs feel if the girls make good money in their establishments they can do what they want and get away w/ it , as the girls will put up w/ it beacuse they are doing so well.

  15. #15
    Pamela
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    What Michelele says is true, at least in my case. 1 club when i moved from Lauderdale was big on doing charity. The dancers did not have to participate if they did not want to. Staff asked why. But did not make them, or raise a stink. You can't make an IC do charity work inside a club. It does not seem to make sense.

    Now employees, i can see being on the clock and what ever charity may come your way. You are getting paid by the hour.

    I would be damned if i am going to tip out all that i have, while spending my time dropping my earnings for a charity. I had better things to do, hustle.

    Pamela

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    God/dess Zofia's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    On the legality issue - ANYTHING outside of state/city laws that the club makes up makes you an employee.

    Unless you are paid by the hour , you are considerd an independent contractor


    Just A Girl and Michelle, it's not that simple. The Restatement of Torts, Second has an eight part test that helps determine if someone is an employee or independent contractor:
    1) right of control over the manner and means of the work;
    2) whether the task is part of the prinicpal’s regular business;
    3) if discharge is terminable at will;
    4) does the worker have a distinct business with equipment or employees which is subject to profit and loss;
    5) the skill and supervision
    required;
    6) mode of payment;
    7) bargaining position and
    8) the intent of the parties.

    Not every state uses this eight part test, and the California Supreme Court has cautioned that these cases are very fact specific.

    HTH
    Z

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Well, tonight is the last night of doing these stupid things and tomorrow they have the raffle drawing. I did have to end up buying one of my own tickets the other night. Maybe I'll win a Ferrari.

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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Hey I bought one of the tickets...no wait 2 of the tickets. Your guys got ripped off over that?
    "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

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    God/dess montythegeek's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Since there is a high part of this which depends on state law, I would recommend an anonymous call to the State department of employment to ask about this. By anonymous I would give no entity or person's name and dial *whatever to prevent caller id from catching you. You just want to find out if it is legal, not cause trouble.

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    Featured Member phillydj's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I have to question the whole "forcing"you to buy something for a "charity"...sounds odd.
    I Would Never Belong To Any Club That Would Have Me As A Member - Groucho Marx

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    Member Trisha's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    Hey! Girls, I want to know something, I´m a dominican 20 years old girl and actually I can get a tourist visa to go to NY, I want to know if I can work as Stripper being a tourist.

    I heard that to dance in a club you don´t need a contrat, so you don´t have a formal job. But I know that for tourists is not allwoed to work.

    Please help me!!!! My dream is to be Stripper in New York

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    Veteran Member anais's Avatar
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    Default To Trisha

    I don't know the answer to your question, but you might want to start a new topic and ask. This is a pretty old topic and most people won't see your question buried in this thread. Good luck.

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    Default Re: is this legal?

    It was not a question if I got ripped off. It just sounded like anais was made to buy one and that to me sounds like she got ripped off. If she could not have sold it she was stuck with it. Thats not right. Thats what I was tring to say. I did not get ripped off. You got a dance and the ticket for 20 bucks. The same price as a dance alone.
    "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: is this legal?

    I´m a dominican 20 years old girl and actually I can get a tourist visa to go to NY, I want to know if I can work as Stripper being a tourist.
    Because of the identity verification requirements placed on all US businesses, and the heavy fines enacted for breaking this law after 9/11, and also because of the large amount of publicity regarding 'illegal aliens' both with California driver's licenses and with Walmart subcontractors, any upscale "corporate" club in New York is going to need to see one of the following before they hire you ...
    - A drivers license plus 2nd ID showing you are an American Citizen
    - A drivers license plus a "green card" showing that you are a legal alien permanently residing in America
    - A 'work visa' issued by the US state department (which almost always requires an agent plus proof of feature bookings in US clubs on definite dates)

    Based on the latest Homeland Security announcements and judge's interpretation of immigration law, persons who enter the USA with a 'tourist visa' cannot be legally hired by any US business. Based on the same legal interpretation, persons who enter the USA with a 'student visa' can ONLY be hired by the college that they are attending - they cannot be hired by other US businesses.

    There are of course a few clubs who don't have much regard for such "niceties" as obeying immigration law/hiring "illegal aliens". One of these clubs would probably be very happy to hire you without even asking for your real name let alone a 'work visa' or a 'green card'. However, these sort of clubs also usually don't have much regard for obeying other laws either such as prostitution, drugs etc. meaning that you'll probably be expected to do a whole lot more than just dance in one of these clubs!

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