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Law changes requiring dancers to be paid minimum wage at strip clubs?

avatar for bman77
bman77
Maryland
I live in Maryland and was at my favorite strip club in the area tonight, The Player's Club in Baltimore..a dancer told me that due to the club being sued, or other clubs being sued..not sure about this detail..that the dancers at the Players Club and other clubs in Maryland will soon all start being paid minimum wage. The dancer advised that in return, the dancers will now have to pay the club $10 bucks out of their $30 dollar dance whereas before they could keep all of it....Anyone know if this is a new law in Maryland? First I've heard of this..I think if it happens it would give shitty dancers and ugly ass dancers incentive to stay on the job because they would at least be able to make minimum wage, even if no one is buying dances from them, whereas now the free market dictates who makes money and who doesn't. Seems like strip club socialism to me.

18 comments

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avatar for TortillaChip
TortillaChip
•
12 years ago
Clubs would probably fire or dramatically decrease hours of strippers who can't sell. Socialism? LMAO
avatar for gawker
gawker
•
12 years ago
That's happening all over there was a federal judge who ruled that strippers were not a contracted service and that they were to be considered employees. There's a feminist lawyer in Boston who is advertising for exotic dancers to band together and sue. What's next? Unions? Benefits? Health care? My ATF filed taxes for the first time this year and the club says they now have to report estimated tips. One more reason for OTC.
avatar for crazyjoe
crazyjoe
•
12 years ago
Dancers screwed themselves trying to have their cake and eat it too
avatar for nickifree
nickifree
•
12 years ago
What's even more threatening is that dancers will receive unemployment compensation once the club let's them go.

A club either has to not hire fat dancers and face discrimination lawsuit or hire them and either have a club full of fat dancers, or let them go and pay unemployment benefits. It's the end of strip clubs.
avatar for Club_Goer_Seattle
Club_Goer_Seattle
•
12 years ago
It's not just a Maryland issue. Like Gawker mentioned, it's an issue that pops up around the country. Strip clubs operate with their dancers as independent contractors. But more so, clubs treat their dancers more like employees. (Meaning the use of rules, schedules, pricing, etc.) They will do whichever when it's to the clubs' economic advantage to do so.

In Las Vegas, Sapphire came under fire a few years ago. This 2010 article from the Las Vegas Sun, explains the issues:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct…

Within the article, an L.A. area law firm is mentioned that specializes in strippers' rights. Some interesting reading there:

exoticdancerrights.com

I can just imagine what working for that law firm is like!
avatar for Dougster
Dougster
•
12 years ago
"strippers' rights"

So keep them from being used in inhumane medical experiments? Lobby for them to be let out of the club to run around in the fields during slower parts of the day? Stuff like that?
avatar for gawker
gawker
•
12 years ago
To my knowledge there is no antidiscrimination protection for fat or ugly people. Age discrimination is more likely.
avatar for Alucard
Alucard
•
12 years ago
"Law changes requiring dancers to be paid minimum wage at strip clubs"

Good.
avatar for inno123
inno123
•
12 years ago
We have had a similar situation in California, where a law made dancers have to be statutory employees and a ruling required that money given directly from the customer to the dancer is entirely hers.

No big deal. You now pay for the dance either with the bartender, with the person watching the entrance to the lap dance area, or with some sort of machine. Some have you pay on the way in, others on the way out.

Dancers are paid minimum wage plus state-required benefits as a draw against a commission on sales.

If anything it makes extras a little more common since the tips for extras are entirely hers and off of the record.
avatar for deogol
deogol
•
12 years ago
The law still works for routing out ugly dancers... no cripples on the football field you know...
avatar for jester214
jester214
•
12 years ago
Strip clubs will survive just fine. In the long run dancers only hurt themselves with the lawsuits that brought this about.
avatar for jacobs.patrick7
jacobs.patrick7
•
12 years ago
Not sure how this would effect the customers?! Sounds like a stripper-club owner problem. Don't really care how sausage is made, just how it is eaten. :-)
avatar for Papi_Chulo
Papi_Chulo
•
12 years ago
Business costs often times eventually get passed down to the customer – let’s hope things don’t take a turn for the worst.
avatar for sharkhunter
sharkhunter
•
12 years ago
I wonder if the club attempted to define working time as time dancing on stage and or time dancing for a customer. This probably wouldn't amount to a lot of time. The rest of the time could be considered attempting to sell dances to customers. When she is dancing for a customer, she is probably getting paid above minimum wage. The only other time would be stage dancing and assuming she gets no stage tips, the club would have to pay her miminum wage for her stage time minus tips made on stage.
avatar for jdoggy
jdoggy
•
12 years ago
Bman - Players Club is also my favorite club, hit it twice last week. It has always been that the girls have to pay a tip out to the club each night they work, anywhere from $80 to $120 (maybe more) depending on the day of the week. Will the $10 out of the $30 lap dance charge replace the tip out?
avatar for gatorfan
gatorfan
•
12 years ago
Sure why not
avatar for crazyjoe
crazyjoe
•
12 years ago
They can get around the discrimination by calling the dancers entertainers
avatar for bman77
bman77
•
12 years ago
@jdoggy, the way the dancer explained it to me was the $10 the club would start taking for each dance would help them pay for the new minimum wage requirement, so I'm assuming the dancers would still have the tip out, not sure of this though.
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