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Florida's Vice Economy
Vice: Strip clubs in Florida
The number of clubs isn't increasing, but the business is growing — and playing the ‘more acceptable' card.
D.J. Doody, Oakland Park’s city attorney and a shareholder with Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol in Fort Lauderdale, says Florida should expect, as cities seek to redevelop, a reduction in the number of “adult entertainment” businesses through the regulation of alcohol sales. “I think it’s an irreversible trend,” Doody says.
Peter didn’t wind up out of business. He relocated, under the Solid Gold banner, five miles away in Pompano Beach, which has its own renewal going with multi-million dollar beach redevelopment work, a pier rebuilding, a new library and cultural center and private sector developments. Peter’s club, however, sits west of I-95 in an industrial park. His blog reported the June opening drew a standing-room only crowd who witnessed “100 of Florida’s most beautiful entertainers.”
Redressing Their Grievances
Strippers sue to be paid minimum wage.
Tampa attorney W. John Gadd makes his living on cases of consumer and labor law. A couple of years ago, he sat down with a new client, a stripper with a grievance, and asked the routine questions a lawyer asks to learn what kind of legal remedies might be available.
“Wait a minute. You don’t get paid anything? It’s all tips?” he remembers asking. Gadd says he was dumbfounded. He learned that while some strippers who look and perform well enough can make good money; others make very little for “the privilege of getting on stage and undressing.” Strippers at some clubs pay for stage time and make required tips to managers and D.J.s. “Could it really be that we have a whole industry in the Tampa/Clearwater area that’s in flagrant violation of the law? The more I learned about it, the more egregious it seemed to be,” he says.
The cases Gadd brought are but a trickle in a wave of labor suits that have hit the strip club industry in Florida and nationally. From Key West up through southeast Florida and on to Tampa Bay, clubs have been settling with dancers as individuals and as members of a class action — and with their lawyers, who get a considerable cut — over minimum pay violations.
The clubs in question for years treated dancers as independent contractors, but attorneys for the dancers say their clients don’t remotely fit the legal tests for that classification.
In 2015, Scarlett’s Cabaret in Hal- landale and two affiliated clubs settled a class-action suit for $6 million. Dancers were paying $55 to dance, $20 to the D.J. and a handful of dollars to each security guard, according to reports. Key West club owner Red Garter Saloon settled for $1.2 million last year.
The industry says it’s being sued like Uber and other businesses by attorneys who’ve found a meal ticket in bringing such actions. Angelina Spencer, executive director of industry group National Association of Club Executives, says clubs themselves are divided “pretty evenly” among those who classify dancers as employees and those who view them as independent contractors. National chain Déjà vu Consulting, parent of more than 60 clubs across the country including two in Tampa, earlier this year reached a proposed $6.5-million settlement covering as many as 50,000 dancers.
What’s notable about that case is an attempt, awaiting judicial approval, to establish clear rules for determining which dancers will be classified as employees and which as contractors.
Gadd’s interview with the stripper wound up in a lawsuit. He represented a dancer who sued Diamond Dolls and another who sued Baby Dolls, both Clearwater establishments. Both cases settled on undisclosed terms.
“What always struck me about this one is it’s right in front of your face and everyone knows it except the dancers,” Gadd says. “The case law is squarely on their side. The girls just have to be willing to participate.”
‘Fast Cash’
Alexa Rohlsen, who sued Baby Dolls, took up dancing at 18 in clubs in Tampa and Clearwater to pay for her tuition at cosmetology school. Now 24 and a mother of two, she’s a licensed cosmetologist and working as a medical tech and home health aide. She last danced in 2015. “Dancing is fast cash. I was freshly out of high school,” she says. “I can’t really say I hated dancing. I was young.” It fit her school schedule. At some clubs, dancers are employees. At others, they not only work just for tips but also have to pay for a dance slot, pay the manager and tip the D.J. and security people.
