Here at Wonkette, we take our goal of bringing you Very Serious Legal News very seriously. Whether it is politicians getting busted for the sexytime, politicians getting busted for the sexytime, or politicians getting busted for the sexytime, we here at Wonkette are ON it.
Sometimes sexytime isn’t so sexy, though! Sometimes ladies who deliver the sexytime to the lonely menz at the improbably named Spearmint Rhino chain of strip clubs get completely screwed over, and not in the fun way:
Two women who danced at the Spearmint Rhino in Oxnard launched the suit: Christeen Rivera and Tracy Dawn Trauth. They claimed they were wrongly treated as independent contractors rather than employees entitled to benefits. They sought back wages, tips, attorney fees and damages.
According to the suit, the women each earned an average of $500,000 a year in tips for lap and table dances. But the dancers alleged most of the money went to the club to cover “rent,” the disc jockey, stage fees, overhead costs and even penalties if they didn’t get enough men to purchase drinks during a shift.
$500,000 is a lot of monies! Though, given the strippers’ likely clientele (presumably politicians looking for sexytime!) no amount of money is enough monies. According to the settlement, there was pretty much no way in which the Spearmint Rhino didn’t straight-up rob everyone that worked for them:
It’s definitely a big win for the 14 dancers named in the suit, but also for dancers in California. Judge Phillips ruled that within 30 days Spearmint Rhino must stop charging dancers what are known as “stage fees” for the right to work. Phillips also ruled that the chain is required to grant all dancers in their clubs employee status within six months, ending the illegal practice of classifying dancers as independent contractors while also placing workplace demands on them that far exceed that legal status. By managing dancers like employees but putting them on the books as independent contractors, club owners get out of paying dancers the benefits they’re legally entitled to, which could include worker’s compensation, unemployment, and health insurance if they qualify.
As Spearmint Rhino is apparently a ginormous chain of strip clubs, a veritable Wal-Mart of legal sexytime (your faithful Wonkette editrix informs us that they exist in copious amounts in Los Angeles), the settlement is $13 million and covers dancers in California, Kentucky, Idaho, Florida and Nevada. Woo for multi-state legal sexytime labor victories!!
The real story here, though, let’s be honest, is the deeply unsexy name, Spearmint Rhino. Is that image – some improbably-colored (or flavored? ewww) large tough-hided animal? If so, you’re in luck in California, Kentucky, Idaho, Florida, and Nevada! Those of us in other states will have to make do with our pedestrian strip club names that simply tell us how hot the ladies will be, like Dream Girls.
{ 213 comments }
Do the dancers have to pay a pole tax, too?
Ba-dum-dum tshhhh!
You can tax my pole after you pry my cold, dead hands off it.
Ditto her breastses!
In what way were the Secret Service guys involved?
http://instantrimshot.com/classic/?sound=rimshot
RINOs and strippers…is this a Michael Steele thread?
It's a poll tax, with votes.
And why does this decision cover so many dancers? Aren't they supposed to be uncovered?
A judge, a stripper and a rhino walk into a bar… … ?
and a RINO walk into a bar…
/ fixed
You can he is a RINO because he is checking out the womenz.
And they're all horny?
"and the judge says, "hey barkeep,"….
"…. a drink and a bite to eat for my friends here…."
give each of us a butt shot vodka, we are taking turns! whooohooo!
The judge says, "Drinks all around! We're getting married!"
The bartender says, "That goddamn Obama. They said that if he won we'd be screwing animals!"
The judge responds, "My good man, who said anything about screwing animals. This lady and I are getting married."
The bartender says, "Then what's with the rhinoceros?"
The rhinoceros says (in a deep voice), "I'm the maid of honor."
Republicans in Naughty Only
Rhinos be horny, doncha know?
Is Spearmint Rhino owned by Bain Capital by any chance?
CURSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
please, please, please….
No, they wouldn't be interested–it's hard to outsource a lap dancer.
Hard is what they are after.
Can you get Indians on an H-1B for it?
And *now* we know what the Republicans will demand in exchange for immigration reform…
Oh God I hope so…brb
I lean towards Azerbaijanis on a J1 visa, since they're younger and all, but yeah.
Can you doubt it? The forbidding cognitive dissonance, the mind-numbing (sex organs-offputing) lack of charm or poetry, the inappositeness of such a name for such places, all are positively blatant clues that either Romneys or Romney-like persons have their fell clutches on the wallets and genitals of the workers and the customers.
Oh, good. That means that the Spearmint Rhinos in New Mexico will still be staffed by underpaid, exploited strippers.
brb
Don't forget a towel!
Are you elsewhere in NM, because the one here in Albuquerque shut down already.
Did it? I guess I'm just out of touch.
I only make it to ABQ about once a month, and "checking to see which strip clubs are still open" is low on my list of things to do.
Somehow Bain is involved in this.
He he.
they will be now. cuz munies. or will his 'insurance' pay this?
Judge Phillips is in the tank for Big Boobies.
Isn't everyone? Really? Except, well, I had this neighbor. She was fine looking without big'uns. Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…
But that was 30 years ago, when they used to have a show.
In the tank (top).
"deeply unsexy name, Spearmint Rhino."
Rilly. Needz moar Doublemint Twins.
Sounds like the snarky "that's the name of my next band" at the end of a long string of replies from drunk/stoned Wonkateers.
Today, we are all pimping strip club owners.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Frank Parlato thinks these womenz should quit thinking of themselves as victims and make him a sandwich.
I see what you did there. Nice!
I, also too, would like to be a sandwich.
My stripper name is "Handsome Joe Biden", by the way.
Happy Birthday!
You beat me to it, Miss.
Christeen and Tracy Dawn were their stripper names from birth.
Friend of mine named his daughters Krystal and Amber. I never said anything, but thought, "Dude, self-fulfilling prophecy if they become dancers." Fortunately, despite their being raised in South Texas Hillbilly Valhalla, they both graduated from Hi-Dollah College and are both on their ways to successful careers as physicians. Who'd a thunk it?
Yes, but how'd they pay for med school?
HAH! Bet you never thought about that, didja?
An undergraduate student I once knew was strongly suspected of such employment. The graduate students (including me) strongly resisted the temptation to find out for sure because we thought she would drop out of school and we'd never see her walking around campus. (Yes, just watching her walk around campus was an experience…)
Actually, he started what is now one of the biggest fence companes in South Texas when we got out of high school and he's a fucking millionaire now. So I doubt it. And I can't think of them in those terms, they're my bud's little girls!!
So you're no SEC official, I perceive.
Oh yeah? My country's president's name is Barack Hussein, and my country isn't even a muslin one! (Yet.)
Didn't even need to combine the name of their first pet and the street they grew up on. Unfortunately, my name stripper name under those rules is Choppy Eighth.
Mine would be Grayfin Fox Hollow.
Yeah, but the club was Republican in name only. [spit!] Basically a bunch of fuckin' libtards and queers. I mean, fuck it, when you're marketing yourself as a gum-flavored version of an odd-toed ungulate, well, that's just fuckin' gay. [spit] No true constitutional conservatives giving lapdances there, man.
So if they changed the name of the club to, say, the BeeMint Rhino, you'd go in?
I'd rather it be something dip related. [spit] The Long Cut Rino sounds kinda gay though. [spit!]
Red Man Rhino. There ya go!
Copenhooter.
way way too many monosyllabic words there skoal.
just sayin.
Fuckin' Government. Not only must I make 'em employees in six months, I hafta cover their GOD DAMN BIRTH CONTROL.
I think strip clubs put it in the dancers' drinks, at least the good ones. Pregnant strippers are bad for business. Plus it takes at least 3 months to get back in stripper shape, depending on how competitive your local market is, so you're without Amber-Lynn for a whole year. Bad business
Two women who danced at the Spearmint Rhino in Oxnard launched the suit: Christeen Rivera and Tracy Dawn Trauth.
I call bullshit! Strippers have names like Candy Striper or Pola Dansa!
Destiny is a popular stripper name too, er uh, I mean that's what I heard.
They should change their strip club name back to their original one–The Elephantightass.
I'll be back soon. I'm off to trademark Horny Hippo.
Sexy Llama was taken…
Can you do Manatease while you're at it?
There used to be a totally nude club in Houston called the Pink Pussycat.
If memory serves me, Baltimore's "block" had a Pink Pussycat.
Poor dear sad old 'Block.'
Haven't been in Charm City since '96…did they pave paradise and put up a parking garage?
There is still a nudie club in San Jose called the Pink Poodle. It's practically a local monument.
.
!
%#@*(
(I'd deleted my comment – usual down thread duplication problem – and was trying to think of something else to say, when you interrupted.)
Please accept this upfist as condolence and apology.
Very much to the point, your comment!
[Posted this before I saw the exchange that followed. Still, I did see your point!]
"Spearmint Rhino" sounds like a tube steak on steroids.
I'd say a flavored condom.
I wish I had half a mil or so to invest in a titty bar, with a slightly more targeted audience than "has a penis." Given the upsurge in divorces and the number of hot divorcees one sees these days, I would only hire well-maintained 35-50-year-olds. Baldar's MILF Bar.
MILK Bar might sell more tickets…
Be careful about Alex and his droogs, though.
The MILF bar. LOL. Do they dance to "Singin' in the Rain?"
And anything by Yanni.
And those Andrews Sisters. Those gals are crackerjack!
Now that I know about these unfair labor practices, I'll give all my business to Peppermint Hippo.
That is best. I hear the owner was complaining about the 14 cents per lap dance he would lose to give these sweet young ladies benefits.
Peppermint Hippo sounds like a place where the tables have to be very sturdy.
I am shocked, shocked!…to hear that a company that operates strip clubs has adopted business practices that exploit women.
Now…is irony finally and truly dead in America or what?
Hell, the Tea Party put the last nail in irony's coffin three years ago; satire remains on life support.
Phillips also ruled that the chain is required to grant all dancers in their clubs employee status within six months, ending the illegal practice of classifying dancers as independent contractors while also placing workplace demands on them that far exceed that legal status.
It's bad enough Linda McMahon lost her election, now she's going to lose her wrestlers.
Favorite comment on her campaign.
Someone seems to have run out of bubblegum.
Son of a bitch! Rowdy Roddy Piper, bless his heart. Thank you for sharing the link.
Yea, he doesn't like the McMahon family at all, except Vince and maybe his son-in-law Paul.
Nice.
I prefered the Deja Vu myself, back when I was pretending to be straight.
How can you go wrong with "99 beautiful girls and three ugly ones" as your slogan?
My cousin quips they named that place 'Deja Vu' because every time you go to a strip club, it's exactly the same.
Is that in Seattle? Or maybe a generic place?
Deja Vu is everywhere.
Seattle does have the Lusty Lady, also of SF; unionized girls, seedy as hell.
Sorry. I know these things from my days as a late-teen exploring the underbelly of said cities.
and I know it from doing research for a play I was in called “Dressing” about the lives of strippers!
Nice! I didn't mean to sound pedantic.
Is there a My Little Rhino cartoon……….?
Today, we are all brineys.
The strip club gets six months to have the strippers fill out W4s? Sweet Jebus that's ridiculous. It takes five minutes.
Of course, being strippers and employees with (you'd hope) health insurance, they'll all want free birth control and/or free Obamacare abortions when they get legitimately raped. So I guess the Spearment Rhino "gentlemans' club" is yet another victim of creeping Sharia Law/socialized medicine.
Spearmint Rhino
I see what they do here
Then you're the only one.
$500,000 a year? Let's say each young lady works 50 weeks a year – just to keep the math simple. That's $10,000 a week. Five nights a week? $2,000 per shift.
Work 10 hours per night? OK – $200 an hour. Serious tips, indeed…
Not surprising. I know bartendresses who make $90K a year just for wearing scoop top blouses.
And that's just off me.
Does this bar have an address? My current bartender is having belt issues.
Bell Blvd, right by the LIRR
I really hope its Safari Beach Club.
I'd LIRR at them too, but I am too far away for that to be convenient.
Don't you know how to round?
That is some serious money! Gentlemen's club, indeed. If Republican women could master the hand/blow job, think how many other businesses would collapse.
I'm wondering why they wouldn't pool resources, by their own joint, and just become the management. It would probably be a more fun, less-rapey place, too.
Well, now that they're being allowed to keep their money, they probably will. Garnishing every tip ever wasn't just for profit or spite, after all.
Sorry, "buy". Winger moment.
Not a lot when you figure the effective "retirement" age is around 25.
Wait, you're saying that strippers are actual human beings, with legal rights, and not just pieces of meat and eye candy?!?
This could be an entire specialty of legal practice!
Meat candy. That just killed my boner.
What will happen if these” Job Producers” go Galt and take their stripper poles with them.
I hope they take them up the ass.
The ceiling will collapse?
I say we nationalize the stripper industry to ensure its continued status as a public benefit.
That's a hell of a business plan, making the performers pay for the stage and the DJ and holding them responsible for the drunkenness of the clientele. It certainly goes a long way to explaining the RNC's junkets to lesbian bondage shows. Well — that and the lesbian bondage.
A new bar opened on the northside of San Antonio called The Angry Elephant, and from what I can tell (website is blocked here at work), yes, it is a politically motivated name. Guess what bar I will never frequent?
But how are the strippers? Buncha old white ladies in orthopedic panties?
They recreate June Taylor Dancers' routines on their HoveRounds.
And they have a live "buckin' ello-funt" that will kick you in the face if you try to ride it.
The name should draw them in like flies… Was McAssholes already taken?
That name would get you McSued in a heartbeat.
…because that's the trademarked name of the synthetic protein used in all McDonald's products.
Guess they just haven't caught up with this guy yet. https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/54014…
In unrelated news, "Spearmint Rhino" was my nickname in college.
This was the same college you said you graduated magna cum loudly?
I always gave the finger to those Shhh! signs in the library.
Looks like the Strip Club is on the horns of a dilemma.
I was once told by an, um, acquaintance, who is a DJ (and also in a techno "band" or whatever and also who dates strippers a lot) that these are all extremely common practice, and that ladies typically earn 10 cents on the dollar or less for those lap dances. So, I don't really have much to say other than it'll be good if this means more ladies actually get to keep more of the money they are earning and in that context it is very hard for me to snark about the nature of their labor in this case?
This is why The Lusty Lady in San Francisco's North Beach is a co-op – owned by the women who work there. They just got tired of being ripped off all the time.
Then there was the old Condor. Carol Doda would come down to the stage on the top of a piano lowered from the ceiling. One night, after closing, a bouncer/barker and one of the employees decided to get it on while on the piano.
It went up and crushed him. The poor woman had to spend the night under the dead guy until the morning crew arrived.
"Pffft, that's nothing," says Callista.
As one who was once awesome enough to have a stripper GF, I have firsthand knowledge of these practices.
The first $75 goes to the house every night
You have to tip the house mom who works in the dressing room – about $25
TIp the DJ for him to introduce you on the mic and play your favorite songs – $25
Oh, and if you're late, you have to pay based on how late you are. Say your shift starts at 7p, and you get there at 8, that's an extra $100 to the house, I believe it was $50 per half hour at the time.
And you ARENT ALLOWED to leave during your shift, and at closing time you have to wait until all the patrons to leave the parking lot before you can go to your car. This is supposed to be for the safety of the girls, and to prevent them from turning tricks during their shift, so I guess that part is sort of a good thing.
Ahhh, the things I learned dating a stripper, good times, good times.
Most weekend nights, she would still clear $500.
Oh, I forgot the part where if you're the boyfriend, all of a sudden it's MY job to pay for your trip to the Abortionplex!
And then she got her degree, right?
Ah, the titty bar. Where an ugly man with money and a handsome man are treated just the same.
All monies are created equal.
And, where the women are treated like, well, every woman ever in the history of time. lol
Those are the worst stripper names I've ever heard!
$500,000 a year does make me wonder if perhaps I went in to the wrong line of work two decades ago.
I think they make more in a year than I have made in two decades.
The problem is, you can't do that work for two decades… time makes hags of us all.
Time and Sir Isaac Newton.
Kentucky? All them Jeebus freaks hanging out at tittie bars?!
So…the strippers got stiffed? Is that what you're saying?
Just another case of Feminazis, Activist Judges and Unions taking away our fundamental American traditions.
And the club owner is going to have to increase the cover charge by .50 to pay for Obamacare, too, I suppose.
I think the Spearmint just got run over by a legal rhino.
The jerbs creators at the Rhino will have to shut their doors as they cannot be free to make the monies that God himself has ordained them to make.
Papa Johns LIBELZ!!!!!!!111
"each earned an average of $500,000 a year in tips for lap and table dances"
Damn. Sign me up. I mean, aside from being a male where other males might not appreciate my unique brand of lap dance…I can do this.
Related:
Exotic dancer arrested on human smuggling charges
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Exotic-dancer-arrest…
Weird — from the article it seems they were already in the country and she was just giving them a ride to Phoenix. Even weirder is that closeted extortionist Paul Babeu is apparently still the sheriff in Pinal County.
Yep. Arizona's just fucking weird. And wrong.
Sounds like someone was actually doing it to "pay her way through college" and for a law degree at that…
I will be taking my tips across the street to Peppermint Patty's, an all-union lesbian nudie bar.
By tips, you mean the money kind, right?
I offer the finest 50 cent advice…and the doctor is always in.
Aside from dildo tips the money kind are the only kind lesbians take.
You're weird, sir.
So who would organize a strippers union? SAG would be frowned upon, the Teamsters would probably be the best. Would the union label be a tramp stamp? I would be willing to check if I frequented this sort of establishment…
For some reason, there was no lack of volunteers to help organizing the strippers.
WWPJD? (What would Papa John Do?) I suspect he would have to lay off him some strippers!
Oddly enough, I don't see the Strippin' at the Spearmint Rhino game available with the Upper East Side Makeover game for teenage girls. Weird.
http://www.girlsw.com/make-up-games/upper-east-si…
Okay, the bad news is that I am now temporarily blind from all the NEKKID BOOBIES on the Spearmint Rhino USA website, because ew.
The good news, though, is that a brand new location is open now in IOWA, which should light up Chuck Grassley's Twitter like a fucking Christmas tree.
Assume boobies nekkid
It's because rhinos don't wear clothes, right?
" it’s easy to park in our FREE underground garage (except on game days)."
They have "clubs" in England. All I can think of is the Simpsons episode with the toothy Brit lady saying, "fresh'n your drink, Gov'ner."
Where's Limey Liz these days? I miss 2L.
One of my local strip clubs is called "Touch of Class", which is more often referred to as "Touch of Ass". I'm also told it does not, in fact, endow touches of class.
On a similar note, one rarely finds gentlemen in a gentleman's club.
Why no truth in advertising? "Gentleman's Club" = Women Seeking Psychosexual Empowerment On Pole For You.
500K? Line up, ladies, the docterry club is open for business! Bring plenty of singles for those tips.
You simply cannot be an independent contractor if you are required to be somewhere at some time by the eimployer. I hope these women get everything they are due!
We got a Rhino in Idaho? I'm told we have RINOs — but none that I want to see in a sparkly G-string.
Does this mean we will soon start seeing women who are good at math entering the profession?
I have a feeling that most of them are good at math because they have to be, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Odd that there were two dancers but neither were named Tiffany, Amber or Destiny.
Mercedes?
I am clearly in the wrong line of work.
This is common practice in Georgia. Dancers have to pay a tip-out fee to every employee in the club, including the bar-backs. It isn't unheard of for a girl to put in an entire shift and have to borrow money from another employee or dancer to make her tip-out. Their big money is made in the VIP Rooms. A fee goes to the House ($20 and up for the first half-hour) but whatever monies change hands for services rendered inside are all hers….or so I've heard.
Wasn't the Spearmint Rhino formerly known as "Daddy Issues"?
“Stage fees” is obviously a euphemism for sexy-time stuff.
If they don't like the club, they should quit and go work at the car wash.
This is why it's best to work in a small club where the tip-outs aren't so onerous. A swanky place will make you broke sometimes, and it really stinks when you're having a slow night.
I used to be a dancer. If I went back now, I'd want to cocktail waitress. You get good tips without the insanity that goes along with being on the stage.
What's insane about showing your pussy to strangers? Sounds normal.
I much prefer the name they used for a strip club on South Park. I mean, The Peppermint Hippo is just so much sexier.
A chain of strip clubs. A strip mall?
At least it wasn't the Pink Rhino in Phoenix, AZ. That place is totally gay.
The strippers should have put their money in the Caymans.
Guys just watch a porno on your tv throw money at the screen then when its over rake up $500,000 a year and save yourself a LOT of money…
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeea…no
Safari so good…
With a pink hotel and a swingin' hot spot (and how did you know I was thinking of that song?).
yes
And a promise to type slower, in the future? Then it's a deal.
And this laurel, and hearty handshake.
Don't desert me now.
No pedantry was received.
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