How would a canadian dancer go about working in the US? What documents do you need to give management and do they take social insurance cards??
How would a canadian dancer go about working in the US? What documents do you need to give management and do they take social insurance cards??





since the passage of the Patriot Act, which now requires that all US "employers" confirm the identity of "employees", to legally work in a US club you'll need, at the minimum, one of the following ...
#1 - a work visa issued by the US State Dep't (US embassy/consulate)
#2 - a student visa, plus some evidence that you are actually a student at a US college (this option is a rather "gray" area)
#3 - a "green card" (resident alien ID), which is most often obtained by marrying a US citizen, giving birth to a child while in the US etc.
Of the three legal options, #1 is very difficult to obtain if you are not a "feature dancer" with pre-arranged appearances in US clubs scheduled by an agent. #2 is very difficult to obtain unless you apply for admission and are accepted at a US college. #3 is actually fairly easy to obtain - all you have to do is convince a US citizen visiting Vancouver to marry you, move with him to the US, automatically get your "green card" 6 months later, then divorce him.
Certain US cities/counties like Las Vegas and Reno NV, Atlanta GA, Dallas TX and some others also require a locally issued "dancer's license" in addition to the above. To obtain this license you must present yourself at the local city hall/county sherriff's office/city police department, fill out the license application (which asks for all sorts of personal info), show ID, and then survive a computerized records check of your ID, past criminal charges, immigration status etc. Since these licensing requirements are established locally, the local officials are free to deny a license to anybody with "question marks" involved. Also, if there are any outstanding "wants and warrants" found during the computer records check, they are free to bust you on the spot.
some other threads like have a lot of info on this subject.
Of course, the answers haven't changed any since you asked about this at
thanx melonie!!! you are ms. resource!!! i had a question about those licenses, you have answered most of my inquirey, except: do they cost anything? i was talking to destiny about working in ashville, NC...





Local license fees can range from $20 for a license that is good for any club in that particular city (Texas) to $350 for a CLUB SPECIFIC license in the Atlanta area (meaning if you change clubs you have to pay for a new license).
While I haven't been to NC recently, I saw that electric_head posted "Ladies at my club in Asheville have to get a city license, $550 per year". If so, this sets a new record for the most expensive dancer's license in the USA, and certainly provides a strong incentive for travelling dancers to avoid the area (tough to cover $550 in license fee + travel expenses with a couple of weeks of club earnings!).
IMHO, these local dancer's license requirements really have three obvious purposes. #1 is to keep girls with a known history of prostitution or drugs or theft from working in local clubs and changing their "culture" for the worse. #2 is to increase city revenues. #3 is for the politicians that passed the licensing law to earn brownie points with local conservative voters by showing that they have done something to "crack down" on local dance clubs.
Local licensing also has a few unpublished purposes. #4 is to allow local cops to enter clubs at any time without a warrant, on the premise of checking licenses. #5 is to restrict clubowners' access to out-of-town dancers, which gives local clubowners an advantage over any chain club which potentially has eyes of opening up a branch club in this city. And the ever famous #6 is to make the real names, addresses and social security numbers of licensed dancers available to anyone who is interested from the IRS to ex-husbands, since a dancer's license is a public document subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information act. It's actually #6 that has the greatest potential negative impact, since for example the IRS can request that the city fax ALL of their dancers' license data to the local IRS office. Then a quick computer check will instantly turn up any licensed dancers in that city who did not file a tax return last year. A few phone calls to clubowners to confirm that these girls are actually dancing then results in a list of girls for IRS agents to audit. From the standpoint of the IRS this is "easy pickings", probably netting them hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unreported/underreported dancers income tax for the cost of one fax and a few phone calls !
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