Haven't been to Centerfolds for a while now, but last time I was there, the dancers carried little boxes into which they put the money received. The house got a cut of that money was the story the dancers told.

The clubs on Broadway, Gentleman Clubs, etc., may take a cut, but I see no evidence of management taking a portion of the money the dancers receive for a lap dance at MSC. If I give her $20 for a lap dance, she keeps $20.

There used to be stage fees ($25 at MSC); I don't know if they still exist. I thought about a decade ago the courts ruled that the clubs had to hire the dancers and pay them a salary and benefits. And, as a result, for at time in the 90's tokens or whatever had to be purchased from the management to get a lap dance. I don't know the details because I did not visit the clubs during this time period. But where I disagree with your point of view is my contention that there is a big difference between a dancer paying a stage fee and a dancer having to split the money given to her for each lap dance.

I am not talking about individual back rooms. That is a whole other story. And I don't see ever using those rooms where you have to pay $100 upfront for the room; your negotiating power just disappeared once you've sunk a $100 for the room.

Stage fees of $25? Is this another one of these history channel reminisces from decades ago? Late 90's / early 2000's (Ziad/Omar era) try a figure closer to about 10 times that amount. May not have been technically labeled a stage fee, but the defacto fees were in that range.

Given the MSC is a ghost town these days. I guess I wouldn't be surprised they were lower now. Can't get blood from a turnip.

>I thought about a decade ago the courts ruled that the clubs had to hire the dancers and pay them a salary and benefits.

What? No, in fact the opposite has been the trend. The dancers have been dumped as employees. Including the MSC. The only club following that employee model is the one that has been sued the most with the most inflated prices to pay for it.

>And, as a result, for at time in the 90's tokens or whatever had to be purchased from the management to get a lap dance.

What? There are gaps in my 90's knowledge of the MSC, but I don't recall an experimentation of the MSC with tokens/chips being mentioned before here on RB. My suspicion is that you are mashing up MBOT reports you read on the net with MSC reports. However, I'm sure someone from the history channel chime in if I'm not recalling correctly.

> I am not talking about individual back rooms.

It is unclear if you are talking about how the MSC works now. About the last thing I was offered the times I've been there in recent years is a LD. Maybe they have had another radical change in recent months, but dancers would highly pitch dances in the back first and almost exclusively.

Perhaps they are letting the dancers keep this money at the MSC since it is such a ghost town. Wouldn't be surprised if there is some "Omar", off-the-books tax that gets thrown at that money though.

Regardless, your whole "For example.... the MSC..." used to kick off this thread, is dubious because this MSC example turns into a special case. It is not characteristic of how SCs (especially nude ones) work in SF these days.

Last time I visited MSC was last April on a Saturday night, and the place had many customers; packed around midnight - even a few women customers, with some getting on stage with the dancers. And I had many lap dances, all but one in the main area. Those were $20 a lap dance. And usually for more than one song; up to ten minutes or more with one very attractive dancer. Then I had a $40 dance back in the cinema room. I would think the same situation (dancers keep all lap dance tips) also occurs at Crazy Horse. Others who frequent CH wish to chime in?

The $25 stage fee was admittedly a while ago; probably about early to mid 90's. I know because one of the dancers wanted me to pay her stage fee prior to going out to dinner with her.

15 year old stage fees are about as relevant today are 15 year ago gas prices.

> And usually for more than one song; up to ten minutes or more

How did you measure this time period? Number of songs or looking at your watch. Standard DejaVu DJ song clipping practices may have you thought 10 minutes had past while she did the LD. It was not likely 10 minutes of wall clock time though.

You also about the only person in last 3 years who has classified the MSC as being packed.

> I would think the same situation (dancers keep all lap dance tips) also occurs at Crazy Horse. Others who frequent CH wish to chime in?

Search this forum on the keywords CH and token ( remember to hit the 'and' button). I think you either haven't read the info in the forum or just pushing this concept for entertainment value. Even pretoken era at the CH still wasn't true.

Not ten minutes for most dancers, but, yes, for one of the dancers. And at least that Saturday night the club was very busy around midnight. Not normal for a Saturday night?

So the Crazy Horse is now using tokens for lap dances? If so, admittedly I missed that. How long ago was that instituted and what is the cost of the token? So lap dancers at CH are now $20 plus the price of the token? Thanks for the info.

Calif. Labor Code Sect. 350(f) defines any amount of money delivered directly to a lap dancer as a "tip." The significance is that it is illegal for an employer to compel an employee to share his/her tips with it.

We've been through this before. The statute was amended about 2001 to specifically apply to money given lap dancers by patrons. I don't know the legislative history, but I never thought strippers had much of a lobby in Sacramento. I've always suspected the impetus was some conservative element knowledgeable of the business model of SC's trying to work mischief.

The OP is also wrong IMO in his apparent notion that money paid directly to the club for such artifices as meter fees or tokens should be considered as actually the dancer's payment for services rendered whether called a "tip" or otherwise. At any rate, the fact that it is not money handed directly from patron to dancer legally insulates it from being considered the dancer's personal property.

As I said, referring to something that it is not will screw with the collective mind. That fact that some nitwits encoded it into law only reinforces that.

> but I never thought strippers had much of a lobby in Sacramento.

Given that lawyers have systemically sued a significant fraction of the clubs in the state over this stuff with class action suites, if you follow the money it isn't a dancer lobby that the money trail leads to.

> some conservative element knowledgeable of the business model of SC's trying to work mischief.

If so then they are stupid. Primarily this has just increased costs on both customers (and most new dancers ) and gotten a flock of ambulance chasing lawyers paid more.

No it isn't.

To make it plain.

You and 4 other guys give the dancer $20 in LDs.
She gets another $40 in stage tips.

Let's say the stage fee is $100.

At end of the night dancer pays the club $100.
Tips the DJ $10, The bouncer $5, house mom $5.

So walks out of the club with $20.00.

There is no way she got to "keep" the money. To talk about the money she gets to keep you can't talk about what she received by hand, it has to be the walking out the door money.

Seems likely your 1992 mental model of how strip clubs work is obsolete. That's not how they work anymore (at least if they don't want to get sued). Even still, the money from stage fees comes from the dances. Whether the club is counting overtly with floor walker, defacto counting with chips, or counting covertly with the club video surveillance.

Now a flat fee is nice with volume dances since the "per dance done" tax gets lower and lower as the dancer does more dances. However, that tax never drops to zero. She could do a 100 dances and it would still be there.

Technically, a dancer at the CH could just do stage shows and not pay any club tax. However, once she does a LD (or better ) dance the revenue sharing kicks in.

P.S. Might remotely have an argument how they are decoupled if dancers paid upfront.

dancer pays $100 at start of shift.
Then walks out the door at end of shift with whether she has got.

The problem is that stage fees are so high 140-240 that few dancers are going to front the club that kind of money on the chance some customers are going to come through. Likewise if the club managers knows it has been a crappy night (it rained buckets and nobody came) they can wave fees or drop them based on customer attendance. It will still be somewhat of a farce because dancers will take the previous day payout to pay the next days front loaded fee even if could kick start the process spread over two days. You also get going to block some dancers from starting (or just get pimped chicks) if put a huge monetary barrier to entry on them getting started dancing on day one.

Let me explain for you. Really a simple concept. An attractive dancer, keeping all the money she receives from many lap dances (as with MSC with no tokens), will do much better than a dancer who does fewer lap dances.

You two are making MLoser look good.