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Thread: NYTimes article on upscale SC

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    Veteran Member Weluckyfew's Avatar
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    Default NYTimes article on upscale SC

    May 12, 2004
    Dancing in the Lap of Luxury
    By MIREYA NAVARRO

    he chairs come in plush velvet or leather. There are main rooms, dining areas, private nooks and alcoves scented by candles. The multiple stages are bathed in high-tech lighting, Champagne flows, and the women, the main attraction, sparkle in glittery gowns - that is, until they strip down to their G-strings for a $20 lap dance.

    But do not call them strippers. In this multimillion-dollar "gentlemen's club," they are "entertainers."

    "The clients are classier and have more money, and the girls tend to be more educated and business-savvy," said Edniz Rivera, 23, an aspiring lawyer from Brooklyn who works as a dancer at the new Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Manhattan. "There's a difference between saying, 'Hello, how are you?' and 'Yo. What's up?' "

    Upscale strip clubs now call the West Side of Manhattan home, in neighborhoods not far from where seedier peep shows, topless bars and pornography stores once flourished in Times Square. In fact, with the opening of Penthouse Executive Club last June, Hustler and Scores WestSide in March and C.E.O. Club of New York last month, a cluster of half a dozen both new and old strip clubs now spreads from West Chelsea to upper Midtown in what a Scores telephone recording calls "Manhattan's new entertainment zone."

    Dallas and Las Vegas are known for their luxurious strip clubs, which owners argue have helped make those cities big destinations for conventions and business travelers. But New York is just catching up with this type of entertainment; the political climate turned hostile to the industry in the 1990's when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani vowed to stamp it out, or at least dilute it.

    Mr. Giuliani ushered in zoning regulations that restricted where clubs, sex shops and bookstores and similar businesses could operate - at least 500 feet from schools, churches and each other, for example, and with only a portion of the premises' space devoted to sex-related activity - and succeeded in ridding the city of dozens of mostly small businesses. But the regulations had loopholes that have allowed most of the businesses to adjust and survive, and they also left areas zoned for manufacturing available for cabarets devoting 100 percent of their space to such activity as long as they do not exceed 10,000 square feet, city officials said.

    Now, near the Hudson River, stripping is so unemcumbered that it comes with doormen, valet parking, renowned chefs and ads on billboards and television.

    Some experts, like Dave Manack, associate publisher of Exotic Dancer Publications, argue that Mr. Guiliani's campaign may even have provided the impetus for the surge in fancy clubs, whose patrons increasingly include couples and women. "If you want to flourish, you have to present yourself as an upscale venue that would attract a large audience, not just men," he said.

    But New York is also joining a nationwide trend, which involves not only more luxurious strip clubs but also more standardization, club owners said. Many of the newer clubs around the country use brand names like Penthouse under licensing deals. Angelina Spencer, national director of the Association of Club Executives, a trade association of strip clubs, said that chains have proliferated in the past five years, offering consistency in service and entertainment and going after volume.

    "It's like the Wal-Mart stores eating up the mom-and-pop stores or going in competition with them," said Ms. Spencer, who owns a Penthouse club in Cleveland.

    And an increase in upscale and bigger clubs is also creating more public acceptance, some club owners said.

    "The market is increasing," said Brad Shafer, a lawyer for Hustler and other strip clubs. "The clubs are seeing more couples. There are women coming in together. It is becoming much more acceptable."

    Women now hold bachelorette parties or birthday celebrations for husbands and boyfriends in such clubs, and even take striptease classes from the dancers.

    Some nearby residents are trying to make the best of things, and forging relationships with their new neighbors. In the case of Scores WestSide, at 536 West 28th Street, members of Community Board 4 even asked the management to plant street trees and hire locally.

    "They have an understanding of what our expectations are, and we have an understanding of who they are," said Anthony Borelli, the board's district manager.

    But others say, high-end or not, the new clubs are attracting street prostitutes. Charles Spence, president of the West 44th Street Better Block Association, said residents were seeing a "reinfiltration" of smut.

    "The community has worked so hard to clean up the neighborhood, and this is a setback," he said.

    On a recent Thursday night, a few female customers at Penthouse Executive Club - a $10 million club at 603 West 45th Street at 11th Avenue, with a capacity of about 400 - were game for a lap dance.

    "This is an opportunity to see up close, to see what it looks like," said Jesse Oliver, 23, who works in marketing for a technology company and got a lap dance from a blond dancer who tripped and fell at Ms. Oliver's feet. "I want to see what my boyfriend finds in them."

    Another customer, Kevin Kelly, 41, said he was entertaining his out-of-town business partner.

    "As long as they are legitimate, they are fun and the women are phenomenal," he said while watching from the bar. "One of them told me she makes $2,000 a night. It's all because of suckers like me."

    For the dancers, upscale means not only bigger tips but also a safer environment, less lewd clientele and nicer co-workers. Sex is not allowed or expected, they said, and customers are not allowed to grope.

    "It's not a brothel," said a 32-year-old from the Bronx who just started dancing at Hustler Club. "It's a fantasy that we're selling."

    Club owners say their business suffers unfairly from an underworld image and the impression that it is associated with prostitution, drugs and the mob. In fact, the city's best known luxury club, Scores, which opened in 1991 at 333 East 60th Street and still operates at that location, once had owners who admitted helping the Gambino organized crime family extort payoffs from the club's employees. Ms. Spencer said that any criminal element was the exception.

    "There's a thorn in every industry," she said. "You only have to look at Enron or WorldCom to see that."

    Amid the neon of the West Side, Mark Yackow, the Penthouse club's chief executive officer, said he welcomed the other strip clubs. "We look at it as an expansion of the marketplace on the West Side," he said.

    But Victor Roiter, who joined three friends to open the C.E.O. Club at 552 West 38th St., said he was not sure how many lap dances the market could bear. "It's going to be a wait-and-see game," he said, "Who's going to survive and who's going to end up closing its doors."



    Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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    God/dess Lexi's Avatar
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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    Yo, whats up?

    Good article, welucky!

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    Actually, I didn't think that the Times article was particularly good. While it didn't give any coverage of this, the new Councilwoman from Chelsea has been trying to organize a new anti-dance club crusade and will gain ammunition from this article. Also, the article may indeed attract the attention of the IRS, state and city in come tax watchdogs, because it specifically mentions that dancers in these upscale clubs are earning $2,000 per night.

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    Veteran Member bibacle's Avatar
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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    I have a different take on this article. It mentions very specific street addresses for the clubs...not just the street name. It mentions each of the clubs, and was extremely positive, particularly for an "upscale" paper like the NYTimes.

    The only negative thing in the entire article was a two sentence quote alledging, but not providing any evidence, that there is an increase in street prostitution. (The author didn't even call the local precinct to see if this was really true.) In fact, this negaive was countered much father up in the article by the fact that Scores West agreed with the Community Board to plant trees and hire locally.

    The article never mentioned the city councilwoman from Chelsea, even though it is in the NY Times Archive.

    The article was given prominent placement (front page of the metro section) with a photo of a dancer at PEC "above the fold".
    By prominently saying how safe and secure these clubs are, and how "mainstream" they are they are actually drumming up business for the clubs.

    It was almost as if the clubs got together and took out a full page ad disguised as a newspaper article. I wonder which of the corporate owners has the NY Times connection?

    By the way, I totally agree with Melonie that this is one more nail in the coffin for existing clubs whose dancer quality and revenue is going down as the moneyed customers are drawn to the far West Side.

    Just my
    --Cookie.

    "Those who dance, are considered crazy by those who can't hear the music."--George Carlin

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    I agree with Cookie's take on this article.

    I am one of the few(?) people who feels the industry needs more regulation. Contact expectations went through the roof in mainstream US club scene in the late 90's and it brought along alot of negatives with it. It's true contact was always available in some clubs and areas but it wasn't the norm.

    Stage fee's went through the roof during this period, earnings began to level off and then drop- even before the economy went way south. Management abuses like fines became more popular too. Dancer quality started dropping and the customer base became thinner and thinner. All this BEFORE the 9/11 and its impact.

    As far as IRS - if you pay your taxes well then you've got nothing to worry about

    I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers or whatever, but I really do feel that if the majority of stipclubs went upscale low contact style the industry would be greatly improved in 10 years


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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    By saying that talking about how much money you are making causing trouble for the business, I wasn't thinking only of the Irs, but of how this may affect the business in other ways, like maybe some customers won't want to spend money on girls who are claiming to make more than they do, babysitters starting to charge astronomical fees to dancers for their services, clubs wanting even higher house fees to get "their share", costumers wanting higher prices for the clothing that they sell us because they think now that we can afford to pay more, etc., etc.
    I just think that it's a good idea to keep the amount of money you make private. When someone asks me how I do at a certain club...I'll tell them how I did by using an adjective, and not a number. I'll say it's great, or okay, or bad...whatever. And I most certainly wouldn't want to talk to any reporter about the amount of money that I was making.
    And I do agree with you, Tigerlilly, that there does need to be some kind of regulation of the strip club industry, for the reasons that you stated, and because a lot of these clubs aren't regulating themselves anymore because they aren't in any fear of getting busted like they used to be.

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    Just cause I said it was good didnt mean that it was a "smart" article. Obviously girls blaring about their "earnings" are pretty stupid. (which for some reason I doubt they all make 2000 a night, but hey)
    I agree, it sounds like a business ploy to "drum up business" and make stripping sound like the "fantasy" job some girls think it is. Oh well... once they get into it, they will realize the harsh reality.

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    Very interesting article! Thanks for posting. I know alot of dancers make 2,000 a night but just imagine the cost of living in NYC or even the east cost for that matter. Doesn't make me as jelouse when I take that into consideraton.

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    The only negative thing in the entire article was a two sentence quote alledging, but not providing any evidence, that there is an increase in street prostitution. (The author didn't even call the local precinct to see if this was really true.) In fact, this negaive was countered much father up in the article by the fact that Scores West agreed with the Community Board to plant trees and hire locally.

    The article never mentioned the city councilwoman from Chelsea, even though it is in the NY Times Archive.

    The article was given prominent placement (front page of the metro section) with a photo of a dancer at PEC "above the fold". By prominently saying how safe and secure these clubs are, and how "mainstream" they are they are actually drumming up business for the clubs.
    I agree that from the standpoint of certain clubs, there was probably a little payola involved to make sure that certain clubs had their names and addresses prominently mentioned. However, if you're familiar with NYC politics, it's fairly easy to connect the dots in that regard.

    The Times is known for being liberal, and the Councilwoman from Chelsea is a conservative. Therefore the Times had no interest whatsoever in supporting her anti-dance club crusade from an editorial policy standpoint. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that part of any payola deal with the prominently mentioned clubs was to make sure that the article take potshots at that very anti-dance club crusade by refuting the issues they have raised.

    However, to avoid the times being accused of total whitewashing, they specifically mentioned the Chelsea district without mentioning the Councilwoman, and they also specifically mentioned an alleged increase in prostitution plus an unhappy neighborhood group, without mentioning that the Chelsea Councilwoman is organizing a new anti-dance club crusade in conjunction with that neighborhood group.

    However, the impact of this article potentially reaches much farther than the NYC city limits. By "amplifying" the upscale club stereotype and specifically mentioning an earnings figure of $2,000 per night, the Times article prompts every local government official and every federal, state and local income tax agent that read it to (mistakely) assume that clubs and dancers are earning HUGE amounts of money. This in turn may prompt them to start "trolling for dollars". After all, in NYC alone, if there are 1000 dancers all supposedly earning $2,000 * 5 * 50 = $500,000 per year, they should be paying somewhere around $200,000 each * 1000 = $200 million dollars a year in income tax according to the (mistaken) info published in this article ! If some overzealous IRS agent decides to quick check a few NYC dancer tax returns, and doesn't find that they declared $500,000 in income as the article led him to expect, he may very well feel justified in believing that the $50,000 or $75,000 or even $100,000 income that they did report is a work of fiction warranting audits and club investigations.

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    LOL we do not make 2000 a night at penthouse-only once in awhile if you get lucky. We do good on most nights but I wouldnt say that good every night.

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    ya know, I've been on this board long enough that I totally ignored the line in the article about making that much money. (and we all know the huge difference between gross revenue and net minus payouts, tips, expenses, etc.).

    However, taking a second look at an unattributed anonymous quote I would say it probably came directly from a club owner who used a very common revenue accounting technique known as the MIU method.

    What is the MIU method?

    It stands for "Make It Up!"
    "Those who dance, are considered crazy by those who can't hear the music."--George Carlin

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    Default Re:NYTimes article on upscale SC

    Well,unfortunately, the IRS usually won't blindly accept an explanation from a club or dancer that the MIU method was used and that actual average dancer incomes are significantly lower. Being paid in cash without payroll records is a double-edged sword. It makes it just as difficult to prove you didn't earn the amount you claimed on the low side as well as the high side. IRS agents and judges, however, ARE very ready to believe that a dancer would be willing to lie about her her actual income, and very ready to to assume that she earned more than she reported, and also very ready to hit her with an additional tax bill for undeclared income if she is audited (which because of lack of payroll records she has no factual way to disprove). "Anecdotal evidence" like this Times article only adds more strength to the IRS position.

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