The practice of strip clubs charging stage fees to strippers who dance at their venues is under investigation by the California labor department at the prodding of San Francisco city officials.
The state labor department announced last week that they plan to audit the financial practices of San Francisco’s strip club industry, which has a long history of violating labor codes.
The Los Angeles Times reports that approximately 200 San Francisco strippers have complained to the state Labor Commission in the last decade. The vast majority of their cases have prevailed as authorities deemed clubs in violation of labor codes for improperly classifying dancers as independent contractors, failing to pay minimum wage, and illegally taking tips that belonged to dancers.
Some women complain that high stage fees, reportedly from $120 to $430 a shift, prompt strippers to prostitute themselves, something they say is made easier by private booths.
Nancy Banks, a stripper at the New Century Theater, credits her refusal to prostitute herself as the reason she earns as much as $400,000 a year, suggesting that’s what kept her customers coming back.
"All this boo-hooing about, 'I only brought home so much.' Well, all I can tell you is that person did not exert themselves," Banks told the Times.
A lawyer for the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, which is considering introducing legislation to regulate the strip clubs’ labor practices, said that courts and commissioners have repeatedly found that strippers were employees, a status that led to a number of settlements for back wages and compensation for stage fees that were deemed illegal.
The city attorney’s office, police and other city departments, have been asked by city officials to investigate the safety of private booths, and to contemplate regulating stages fees.
