Las Vegas Weekly

October 8, 2009 · 12:59 PM

Sucking (on a straw) can get a stripper a citation — how stupid is that?

By Justice

So I’ve been reading that the police want a new code to give to officers, so they have more power to cite dancers for improper touching. I think this is just stupid. It is absolutely stupid if their ultimate goal is to get dancers to give clean dances. If they seek to reduce prostitution, well, that’s a different issue. Handing out a few citations will hardly put a dent in that problem. So the main goal, which is (or should be) getting dancers to give clean dances, as I said, will not happen on a large scale from a few citations.

You see, citations are so few and far between that the majority of career strippers are willing to take a gamble on a regular basis by providing high-contact, strip-club entertainment. It is no big deal to have a prostitution blemish on your record when you’re not really going to be doing anything else, right? Pay a fine and never miss a day of work. No problem. You can actually lose the privilege to work in the industry after, I believe, three citations, but since, like I said, the citations are so few and far between that this ultimate sentence probably rarely happens to anyone.

Since there is a tiny minority of us who don’t appreciate all that ass-grabbing, straddling and grinding marathon stuff, we’re forced to find clubs where this sort of thing doesn’t happen or we just give up and become baristas. Adapt or die, basically. Some adapt by changing their boundaries and some adapt by finding better environments.

I work at the cleanest clubs in the city and it is such a relief to work in those environments. Clean is completely possible. It can also be very lucrative and yet still be absolutely fun for club patrons. Win-win, really. It’s a total blessing.

These clubs have done it right and have a handful of things in common. At clean clubs, there is very little tolerance for bad behavior by either the strippers or by the customers. The owner is often at least one of these clubs and at the rest, the owner is very “present” by watching everything on surveillance in a very “1984” kind of way. These clubs are adequately staffed by security. At the absolute cleanest place, an individual bouncer’s job is at stake when a dancer gets away with dirty dances! Holding security staff and management responsible for stripper and customer behavior will ultimately make a cleaner club. The only incentive owners will have to maintain such an environment is to make their licenses depend on the maintenance of such a place.

That is all very nice, however, in the current state of the law, even the cleanest clubs are still allowing dances that break the law. Sucking on a straw warrants a citation. Touching your own nipples with your fingers warrants a citation. Certain laws are just plain stupid and they can be held over our dancers’ heads. The laws should all be revised, and enforced, and club owners should be responsible for the activities inside their clubs. The excuse that they didn’t know what was happening at their club should not be acceptable. The whole system needs to be overhauled but, unfortunately, with our lack of unity and the slow pace of positive change, I don’t see this happening any time soon.

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