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Stripped
Tales of the naked city, from a Las Vegas dancer.
August 1, 2009 · 8:52 AM
A $29,000 tab at a strip club? Oh yeah, it’s possible
By Justice
Earlier this week, I came across a story on the Las Vegas Sun Web site about James Hackett of Andover, Mass., who is challenging a $29,512 credit-card bill for a night at a Las Vegas strip club. He filed a lawsuit on Friday disputing the amount. That figure breaks down to a $4,000 bar tab, and more than $25,000 for “unexplained services” from six different strippers. I’ll do my best to try to explain what I suspect “unexplained services” to be. Of course, I don’t know all of the facts, but based on my experience I’ll do my best to explain how this kind of bill could have been rung up in a single evening.
To quickly explain the bar tab, individual drinks at a strip club are expensive, ranging from about $10 to $20 each. This is expected. However, at that rate, the person making the orders would have purchased 200 to 400 drinks in six hours, or about 33 to 66 drinks per hour. That is not including gratuity. I’d profile him as a good tipper, so with this formula he’d be buying fewer than 33 to 66 drinks per hour. Still, he’d need a lot of help to drink that much.
A more reasonable explanation for the bar tab would be that he purchased bottle service, which would break down to a little less than $700 per hour in six hours. Bottles of alcohol at a strip club can easily go for several hundred dollars each. With gratuity, the $4,000 charge can be explained in just a few bottles. Since the charges were made late on the night of October 11th, a Saturday night during busy convention season (technically early Sunday morning), it would be safe to assume that there were many people buzzing around helping him drink those bottles.
And the $25,000 for strippers? Easy. I suspect that since there were six strippers that walked away with a piece of the pie, the charges were for their hourly company. They couldn’t possibly have all dog piled onto him in a group lap dance for six hours. There were probably lap dances, certainly, but strippers don’t make that kind of money from just lap dances. Keeping our minds out of the gutter, strippers make that kind of money by negotiating hourly rates for their company, not by doing a million dances. That $25,000 would buy 1,250 individual, standard $20 lap dances. At 2 to 3 minutes per song, that would be about 41 to 62.5 hours of lap dances. Clearly, that didn’t happen.
As independent contractors, strippers can negotiate any price for their services, or even their mere presence. They easily could have gotten the customer to agree, after a few drinks, to buy out their entire shift to hang out with him. I’ve seen strippers sitting with sleeping customers in VIP rooms after the guy has paid for their time. At just under $700 per girl, per hour, an agreeable drunken man could easily find himself wiped out. Each girl would have made a bit over $4,000 for the night, which is completely reasonable for a night at work. I’ve seen a single customer do this for a group of strippers before. It’s not unheard of. Hell, I remember one time when a customer rang up a $40,000 charge in a single evening.
Anyway, I have no idea what happened in this case, of course. I am only speculating. My question is, where is the surveillance footage of all of this?
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Ah, Justice, so cynical for one so young. The economics of strip club life are fascinating seeing that the so-called employees are actually paying to participate in this. Unfortunately, I am afraid that Barnum was wrong. There is a limited universe of suckers. But hope springs eternal!
Posted by: rrbill on 8/1/09 at 10:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Did they make him sign for it??
No signature,, No Tab
Period..
Strippers Lie.. clubs lie.. and i wanna see at least the signature on the tab then i'd say its probably legit..
Posted by: jbigga on 8/1/09 at 11:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Each girl would have made a bit over $4,000 for the night, which is completely reasonable for a night at work"
serioudly i hope this was sarcasm ...1k on a friday or saturday ... Ok during a convention ok ...Or once in a lifetime or more ok ...But 4k a night is not what a dancer make these days...
I also have seen guys drunk and asleep and the girl not waking him up taking advantage of him i call that poor values from the dancer and being an idiot for the customer ...
But i also have seen ,and it digustedme, fingering in the vip room, lots of tongue kissing, intimate playing, and yes, bjs ...So for that price they might have done more !
Posted by: natkingcolebasket on 8/1/09 at 11:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
and this is why, if my husband wants to go to a strip club, he leaves the credit card at home! hahah........ugh
Posted by: MG on 8/2/09 at 8:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
During the 2007-8 season @ Turf Paradise, in a bit of perverse karma, I bought a seat next to a nightmare. Universally despised by in-house employees, with a rather pungent odor wafting from its disheveld appearance. It also had a rather disconcerting habit of staring during its long and regular market dismemberment. Found out from the Lady-In-Charge that it was an Iraqi ex-pat with stakes in several oil rigs who lost between 10-20k, 5X weekly over 8 months. The Whale.
Refreshingly, the man never once cried like a little girl who didn't get the real pony.
equilibrium
Posted by: cypher on 8/2/09 at 1:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Justice, your blog is great! Keep sharing your SC stories with us! I love reading about the industry through your perspective.
Cheers
Posted by: parsch on 8/2/09 at 6:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just found out that the discontented Mr. Hackett is a collections attorney back in Massachusetts. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Hell, if he can't read a saloon bill I guess no one can. Remember, Jimbo, beauty is its own excuse for being.
Posted by: rrbill on 8/3/09 at 12:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think your right. My guess..his wife found the charge and he had to despute it or be killed. Haha
Posted by: mslv on 8/5/09 at 8:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Dispute or be killed by the wife is a probable scenario. And a drunk guy with a need to fortify his ego is also probable. This is not a unique scenario altoghether. I just wish he had been my customer. I've only had one like that, two years ago, and I paid the other half of my new car off after him. This is Vegas, and at some gal, in some club, will make $4000 in a single night every night. We just go to work hoping it will be us. We try to increase the odds by going in more often, to more clubs, with more energy, along with ever other gal trying to do the same. All the while, there are less men, with less money, while everyone whines about the economy. Tough out there. As far as a signature, most, if not all, clubs are taking two signatures, a copy of the DL, and a thumbprint or two. This is supposed to alleviate the possiblity of a dispute. Typically the credit card company will reimburse the customer but nothing happens to the club - unless scams have been proven.
Posted by: SemiSecretStripper on 8/12/09 at 8:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hi Semisecret Stripper...
Of course the economy is bad and ppl spend less and expect more for their dollar.. Its sad... Stripping is supposed to be an art, a fantasy but not what it is now...
I agree with u though...
However though possible when there is a convention 4k a night in a weekday in the summer with this economy .... MMmm not happening unless if ur dancing for a celebrity ...
Its one thing i noticed with my girlfriend: strippers flee reality sometimes and have strong wishful thinking that tonight its going to be there night but it hardly ever does... She reads numerology and is convinced of it but it enver happens...
Dont get me wrong she has had a night 5 years a go whens he had 4k, she has had several times a guy ferom la spending 1or 2k on her but he never came back again to her ebcause he wanted sex and these days a pig will most likely call an escort than go to a strip club he will get what he wants for the same price ...
At the end of the day , she has an attitude and though beautiful she hates her job but got used to quick money but in the sumer time she might make on average during a week day 400 dollars and maybe 600 on saturday.. ITs an average because i was there when she cried because she made none and i was there when she made 700 so it makes an average i guess...
BUt the main problem i see is if she does well one night, then she loses her momentum by not goin for 2 or 3 nights canceling what she has done a bit...
I think clubs are over priced : 500 dolalrs an hours + tip+ cc card charges at 15 to 20 % its crazy+100 mandatory for food ord drinks at treasures ???? ITs crazy...
Anyways hopefully 2010 will see the redemption of the economy, u cant blame ppl to cut their spendings on entertainement when so many arond them have lots their jobs.
Posted by: natkingcolebasket on 8/12/09 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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