article comment
9 years ago
Since so many people have asked about the horrors that occurred at Tiffany's, I'll just go ahead and post my review and blog entry here. I'm having problems with the my website, since Wix has been constantly updating and making software changes over the past couple months. Sorry for such a lengthy post but this seemed to be the easiest way.
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Here is my review (posted on TUSCL, but I'm not sure if everyone can see it):
*** I used to work here and I feel that there are a lot of important things that need to become known about Tiffany's in North Lima. I hope a lot of people read this.
The inside is actually really nice (despite how shitty the pink stucco on the outside looks) and it looks like it could be a relatively high-class club. The décor is awesome and it just has this elegance about it.
And that's all the positive there is to mention.
This place is a disgrace. The majority of the girls are obviously drunk or drugged up and heavily lack class. Most of the drinks are expensive, and any drink you buy for a dancer is $10. A dancer ordered an ICE CUBE in a shot class, and the customer was still charged $10 because it was "for a dancer". If the girls earned a percentage of the drink price for themselves, that would be a different story because they are pushed to talk customers into buying them as many drinks as possible so the club makes money.
This place outright screws over their girls on money. First of all is how they handle alcohol and alcohol sales... girls make 0% off selling drinks, the girls are absolutely not allowed to tell a customer they don't want a drink (this is very bad if the girl is not a drinker because the bartenders will not give them non-alcoholic drinks) and they push alcohol consumption on underage dancers. I worked here for a very short while when I was 19 and 20. Beth, Dave and all the bartenders and severs knew very well that I was not 21, and I was still forced to drink alcohol so that “the customer gets what he paid for”. Numerous times I told customers and the bartender that I preferred a soda or a water, which I was then scolded for and told to never request a non-alcoholic drink if a drink was offered to me.
Next are the private rooms. They are $110 per 15 minutes (so $440 for an hour), dancers make LESS THAN 50% for private rooms - that's right, the club takes nearly 60% of the total room cost and the dancer gets what's left over - I have seen firsthand used condoms, used tampons, dirty panties, douche bottles and men's underwear left in the private rooms, along with cum stains - on the carpets, mirrors and couches - vomit, spilled alcohol and likely other bodily fluids.
I was nearly raped in a private room by a man that was easily 2x my size and weight. He was already completely naked when I got into the room. He grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap and started ripping my clothes off. I fought hard to get away from him and immediately went to Beth. She told me to GET BACK IN MY GODDAMN ROOM AND FINISH THE JOB. So I did, which meant 30 minutes of fighting with a very large man that I had little or no chance against. Fortunately he was so drunk that it was difficult for him to do much of anything.
I told Beth when the time was finally up on our room that I was going to go to the police. She then told me that if the cops came to the club, I wouldn't make it home. So what exactly do you think that means?
Many of the girls are forced into prostitution by Beth (and those who aren't forced do it willingly). If girls don't have sex with the customers, they don't do rooms (which usually means taking home little or no money). You know exactly what customers are paying Beth extra to ensure they get laid, because she always tells the dancer that they are her “good friend”, and to “be sure to take good care of them”.
Any bouncer, DJ, bartender, manager or customer there, or servers and dancers that learn the truth and continue to work, are are absolute fucking garbage. There are so many better clubs than this. You think that just because you live in or around Youngstown that this is your best choice because it's so close? You're dead wrong. You're entering a prostitution ring. This club is a brothel and drug den. If you start here and quit, they will be calling you for weeks and months, begging you to come back.
There is so much more that I don't even have the patience to mention right now. Again, I hope this review gets read by everyone because I want to warn anyone considering entering this place (dancer or customer) before it ruins you, like it has almost ruined me.
Please message me if you have any more questions. I would love nothing more for than this place to get shut town entirely.
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Here is the additional blog piece I wrote to shine some light on the whole thing:
Beth does this nasty little thing that nearly made me swing on her multiple times. If you're sitting with a customer for more than 3 or 4 minutes, she will walk over to them and introduce herself. She'll start off nice and sweet, saying something like, “Are you thinking about taking this beautiful lady in the back for a private show?” This usually goes one of 3 ways:
1.) The customer says yes
2.) The customer says they're thinking about it
3.) The customer says no
If the customer said yes, she would hurry up and rush us into the back immediately, regardless of if we were having a conversation, watching another dancer on stage, or wanted to finish our drinks. If you're anything like me, you want to sit with someone a little longer than 3-4 minutes before being locked in a private room with them for however long they decide. Some customers and myself like to get our talking done before a private room. We like to get to know each other a little bit and feel out one another to get an idea of what kind of person the other of us is. Private dances should be about the dance, not catching up on the normal introductory smalltalk you're supposed to have with your customer beforehand.
If the customer said they'll consider it, or they will but want to but want to sit and talk a little while more, Beth gets upset. As mentioned before, she rushes everything. The quicker you go in, the quicker you come out. The quicker you come out means the sooner you're available to go sit with someone else and sell more rooms to make Beth more money. She will leave your table, only to come back within just a few minutes. At this point, it's more harassment than a sales tactic. She will repeat this behavior until either the customer gives in and goes in the back, or just leaves entirely. During this process, she will “encourage” us to talk the customer into buying a room. She does this by taking either her fingernail or knuckle and digging it into the dancer's back or shoulder, out of sight of the customer. There have been times where she has even resorted to pinching us.
If the customer said no, you may as well have just told Beth that someone vandalized her car. She becomes irate, her face gets red and she starts to sweat. She gets a nasty attitude with the customer, then grabs the dancer's wrist and says, “Come here a minute, I gotta talk to you in private,” and drags them into the ladies' restroom. At this point, Beth will either tell us to leave that customer and go talk to someone else, or scold us for not having sold a dance after having sat with them so long.
This was the very first place where I'd ever danced. I'd never even been inside of a strip club before as a customer or prospective dancer. I was very nervous, I didn't really know how to talk to customers at this point and was just trying to figure things out on my own. Needless to say, I had the wrong idea of strip clubs and dancers for the longest time. I've moved on to bigger and better things, and now I'm as happy as can be.
[[Here is a snippet from a different post]]
I danced there on and off for about a year until I realized that maybe this wasn't the industry for me. I was treated like a piece of meat in a den of hungry wolves. I was exposed to things that no girl should be exposed to without consent. This place was everything I was told it would be – drugs, sex, drunk women getting violated by drunk men – and yet, I stayed. I made a couple of good friends there, and the money was [occasionally] awesome. It wasn't far from home, I could sit at the bar and get free drinks all night despite the fact that I was underage and everyone knew. Plus, I had a passion for dancing on stage. I learned a lot in my time there. Everything from reading people, to how to do my makeup for the club lighting, and even how to dance a little. I especially learned not to trust anyone, ever.
I quit. I was sick of being seen as nothing more than a vagina in stilettos and then treated as such. It's not that I couldn't handle it, I just didn't want to have to. And anyone who knows where I'm talking about knows that management and staff were absolutely no help whatsoever. The customers were rapists, and the staff were their accomplices. They even provided all the furnishings in their rape dungeons. The words “brothel” and “whorehouse” don't even begin to describe the fresh hell that this place actually was. Have you ever seen the movie Taken? Liam Neeson's daughter gets kidnapped and sold into a sex-trafficking ring. This place was pretty much that exactly, except us girls were willingly walking into this place every night. I rarely made money because I usually chose to do everything by the book. Men didn't admire me for my skill or personality, they wanted a good ole fashioned suck n' fuck, and that was it. I've been told this straight to my face by the men themselves. Though I must say, I'm glad for the experience. Like I've mentioned, I really did learn a lot and it was a stepping stone that led me to be where I am today. This place scarred and jaded me, it brought me to tears, made me hate myself and question every decision I ever made. However, it never broke me.
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As my own little addition, I will tell each and everyone one of you that this place turned me into a prostitute. Customers didn't tip on stage or buy lap dances. Everyone in the area is in on the dirty little secret, which is why rooms are the only way to make money. I have given totally legitimate dances in the back, only to have a couple customers complain that it wasn't what they expected (which are some of the ones who outright asked me to perform extra services while in a room). I had to have sex with people to make money. At the time, I needed the money bad enough that I just bit the bullet and did it. My boyfriend was beside himself for the entire ordeal. We have an open relationship, and I'm allowed to sleep with whoever I wanted; I just didn't want it to be the way it was. He understood my predicament, and helped me look for other places to work. Nowhere in my area was any better, so I lost all hope. I would cry most nights when I would get home, and just sit in the shower until the water ran cold. I felt less than human, like I wasn't even worth the dignity and respect of other women who were models or professional dancers. I felt like I was nothing.
Just know that I don't condemn those who choose to have sex for money. I have no problems with it if it's something you want to do. Your body, your choice, right?
Thank you all for your interest! If you have any more questions, please feel free to shoot me some more messages or post here.
article comment
9 years ago
Thank you, everyone, for all of the support and advice. I have spoken to several Human Resource Managers at the company's Headquarters and they are astounded by what they heard. I stated my case to each of them and they were all in agreement with the fact that I was mistreated and it was not handled in the proper manner. They were also highly upset (and asked me for names of the supervisors/leads/HR people) that were involved, because it had not been reported to Headquarters. It is the responsibility of the "important people" in my building to immediately contact HQ when there is any sort of situation that involves violence, drugs, harassment, etc, when the situation has been neutralized and appropriate reports have been documented. I have also contacted the Department of Labor to submit a case with them. It is to my understanding that, even though no criminal charges can be filed, Tay's future employers may now be able to see that he was involved with a sexual harassment incident and was terminated for his involvement/contribution. Unfortunately, because it's a matter of hearsay, there's not too much that can be done on a legal level. However, HQ did contact the particular location where I was working and got all of the necessary information about Tay, then called me back so that I could file a formal report. I was offered to return to my position with the promise that Tay would no longer be there, and he would not be permitted on any property owned by this company. I kindly told them to shove it. I made it known that I would not give their employees the dignity of my return. To them, I may not have been anything but a number, but I still feel like I'm worth something, somewhere. I now have a better job with better pay, much closer to home, very few other employees, and a good opportunity for quick advancement. I have the potential to become a supervisor/foreman within 6 months. Plus, my weekly schedule is considerably more structured now.
In the midst of everything that had already been stirred up, I got a text from my other boss - that's right, a fucking text - saying that I was fired. 5 and a half years of dedicated service to a small business owner; being paid under the table, going out of my way to do extra work above and beyond what was expected of me, rarely ever complaining. He and I were pretty close - he tells others that he loved me like a daughter - he knew about all the hell I was going through with the factory, losing my job so close to the holidays and freaking out about my bills not getting paid. So 5 days after my termination from the factory, he texts me and tells me not to come in anymore. Wonderful guy, huh? I suppose that's another story for another time.
Despite losing 2 jobs within a week of one another (while burning several bridges along the way) and having all odds against me, I remain bullheadedly optimistic. Maybe this is the kick in the ass I've needed to finally do something great. I will use this as a learning experience and a chance to evolve.