Another of my regular clubs gets sued
DandyDan
North Iowa
http://www.omaha.com/article/20140327/NE…
LINCOLN — An exotic dancer has sued a Waverly, Neb., club, claiming the owner is stripping her of her right to a paycheck.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Elizabeth Mays, a resident of Wisconsin, said she has danced at the Shakers club since 2004, but never been paid an hourly wage.
She claims that the strip club is incorrectly regarding its exotic dancers as “independent contractors†to avoid paying wages and time and a half for overtime.
The dancer's attorney, Vince Powers of Lincoln, said the dancers do not fit legal definitions of independent contractors because Shakers regulates the dancers' dress, the background music, working hours, how long to dance and even when to shed their clothing.
Powers also said that some dancers were required to clean bathrooms as part of their employment.
“By all the tests, these women who are employed there are on the job, they're workers, they are not independent contractors,†Powers said.
He said his client's only income was from tips paid by customers, and part of that money had to be paid as “rent†to the club owner.
The lawsuit also pointed out that in 2001, a State Workers' Compensation Court ruling against Shakers deemed dancers who were working there to be “employees.â€
Dan Robinson, the owner of Shakers, said Thursday that he was not aware of the lawsuit before being contacted by The World-Herald.
But Robinson, who has owned the club for the past 19 years, denied that he controls the music and other conditions of employment of the dancers. He said he considers them “lessees†who rent space to do their work, comparing them to beauticians who rent space in a beauty salon.
“They pay a lease to entertain there, to work there. And they keep all the money they make,†Robinson said.
He said he was aware of the 2001 ruling. But Robinson said he agreed to a settlement in that case to avoid the cost of further litigation.
Powers said state and federal wage and hour laws clearly dictate who is an employee and how they should be paid.
“I don't think barbers are told when they rent a chair that they have to take their clothes off in the next three minutes,†he said.
Shakers is a “juice bar†near Interstate 80 that features nude dancing. It does not sell alcohol, only pop and juice. It makes its money on entrance fees.
Thursday, an answering machine at the club said it was open to those 18 and older and was featuring several dancers that evening, including Honey, Blondie and Frankie.
Powers said that he did not know his client's stage name but that she is a college student who continues to performs as an exotic dancer.
The lawsuit, filed in Lancaster County District Court, asks Shakers to pay back wages and interest on those back wages. It also asks that a judge to allow the lawsuit to become a class-action case covering all exotic dancers who have worked at the club since 2000 and that the club owner be barred from retaliating against the dancers.
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I think the ultimate problem is they try to keep a low cost operation by having as minimal a staff as possible and one way to do that is to have the various strippers do things other than just dance. But that's not really an appropriate way to run a strip club, and besides, do you really want to rely on strippers for that?
One other thing, if they had that lawsuit in 2001 which told them their dancers were employees, doesn't that mean every dancer from 2001 on was an employee? If so, that's a lot of back wages to pay, and I'd hate to imagine the dancer winning this case in terms of the future of Shaker's. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the beginning of the end, either way.
Frankly, this lawsuit, and the article, which I originally saw in the newspaper at mom and dad's today, caught me off guard. One of the dancers at one of my other regular clubs told me she worked at Shaker's for a time and told me that things may not be what they seem there. Yes, that's true of all strip clubs, but I think what she was saying is that they may put on a happy face, but a lot of the dancers there are not nearly as happy as they look or present themselves. Also, she told me Dan the owner is an asshole, which I find odd, because I've talked to him and he seems to have a clue about things, unlike the owner of one of my other regular clubs, who strikes me as a lucky village idiot. Then again, you can be too smart for your own good sometimes, and perhaps that's what happened here. Also, I never worked for him, so of course, if he's smart, he isn't going to act like an asshole around me.
Also, I think the analogy to the barber shop is either just plain wrong or inappropriate, because I have always assumed that they were actual employees at those places, although I could be wrong. Whenever I went to Great Clips, or more recently to Sport Clips, they always say apply online at their websites, and it seems to me they aren't applying to be independent contractors.