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Dust your dick for finger prints?

shadowcat

Atlanta suburb

TORONTO - A plan to fingerprint 1,000 exotic dancers in Niagara Region has outraged strippers who claim the precedent-setting scheme is insulting and discriminatory.

The Adult Association of Canada predicted the plan, if approved by Niagara Regional Council, will be adopted in the Toronto area and other parts of the province.

A proposed bylaw would demand that dancers be fingerprinted when renewing or obtaining a licence needed to perform in strip clubs.

The requirement would be a first in Ontario. People are not required to provide fingerprints when obtaining a Canadian passport, health card or driver's licence.

“This is absolutely outrageous, discriminatory and insulting,” said association executive director Tim Lambrinos.

Lambrinos said dancers are concerned that the fingerprints could be shared by police agencies and used to dredge up information — such as records of old criminal charges — that would make it difficult to cross the border.

“This proposal treats entertainers like criminals and they have done nothing wrong,” Lambrinos said. “Will the police be demanding fingerprints from women obtaining health cards or drivers' licences?”

He said there are 33 strip clubs in southern Ontario and they hire thousands of workers and generate millions of dollars in taxes. There are about 1,000 dancers working at eight clubs in the Niagara Region alone.

He said if the plan is approved in Niagara it will only be a matter of time before licensing officials in Toronto and other areas start to demand fingerprints.

Niagara Regional Police Det.-Sgt. Craig Labaune said fingerprints will be required by everyone in the region, including cabbies and bus drivers, who obtain licences from city hall if the bylaw is passed.

“This is the best method we have found for proving someone's identity,” Labaune said. “We have been working on this for years.”

No date has been set for when Niagara regional council will vote on the issue.

Police said the fingerprints, when scanned, will identify the dancers even if they have changed their appearance through hair colour and determine if they are of legal age.

Labaune said the bylaw would benefit club owners because they can better track dancers and weed out underage strippers.

A Toronto Police spokesman said his force has no comment on the issue at this time.

The dancers in Niagara Region have been told that they would have to pay an increased fee to cover the costs of fingerprinting and a biometrics program.