Florida stripper, exotic dancers suing adult clubs

CLEARWATER — Alexa Rohlsen says she danced at a strip club to pay her way through cosmetology school, but these days, it’s been a struggle.

Rohlsen says she likes the work; it’s good exercise, she sees it as art and she likes to be around people.

But the enjoyment goes down when she has to go home with little or no cash for her efforts, even though she pays fees to the club and DJ, whether she made money or not.

“People try and say that dancing isn’t a real job,” she said. “But to us it is because we go out there and we’re working hard. We’re sweating. We’re busting our butts doing all kind of tricks and stuff like that. It’s crazy. We should get paid for that.”

When she injured herself falling off the stripper pole, she had no insurance and so she was on her own when she had to go to the hospital.

So Rohlsen joined a growing number of exotic dancers around the country, filing a lawsuit against her former employer, accusing Baby Dolls in Clearwater of violating federal law by failing to pay her minimum wage and overtime.

Dancers winning

The lawsuit, like others, seeks class-action status on behalf of other dancers in the same situation.

Strippers say the industry practice of paying them no wages while charging them money for the privilege of shaking their stuff for tips is unfair and illegal.

Rohlsen’s lawyer, W. John Gadd, said when he first heard from dancers that they collect zero wages and actually pay the clubs to be allowed to dance, he was flabbergasted.

There was, he said, a “cognitive dissonance” on his part because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

But strip clubs say the dancers are not employees at all. They’re independent contractors or lessees, who rent space in the clubs that generously allow them to earn a very nice living on their own while the club owners shoulder the legal liabilities and fight the political battles to keep their businesses open.

But judges around the country have repeatedly sided with strippers, saying federal law, specifically the Fair Labor Standards Act, protects their right to be considered employees — not independent contractors — and paid wages and given benefits, including workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.

Judges in California, New York, Georgia and Nevada have come down on the side of dancers suing strip clubs. Club owners in other places, including South Florida, have been sued or forced to pay settlements.

Agreements — with a clause

Lawyer Luke Lirot represents Baby Dolls and other Tampa-area strip club owners, including the owners of the Mile High clubs in Pinellas County that were sued for the same thing last year. Although the Mile High case is pending, Lirot acknowledges the courts have been ruling against the owners in the majority of cases.

But he said dancers do not benefit by being considered employees because they can make much more money through tips and private dance fees than they could earn if they got minimum wage.

“If they were employees, the money they make for the dances would go back to the club,” he said. “There’s not a dancer anywhere in the bay area — or country for that matter — if they’re diligent enough to leave the dressing room, that can’t make many multiples of minimum wage with a modicum of effort.”

Lirot has been working to inoculate his clients by drawing up lease agreements for dancers to sign saying they are temporarily leasing space in the clubs to ply their trade, similar to an agreement a hairdresser might make with a salon.

The agreements, he said, also include a clause requiring the dancers to agree to give up their right to sue and to take any legal disagreements to binding arbitration. Lirot has filed a motion to dismiss the Mile High case and send it to binding arbitration, although he could not find arbitration agreements signed by some of the dancers who sued those clubs.

Lirot said he checked and was unable to find an agreement signed by Rohlsen, although he said other dancers at Baby Dolls have signed it.

“To summarize the position of the club owners,” he said, “through their sweat and labor, they develop and maintain these businesses and generously provide these performers with the opportunity to make as much money as they can earn lawfully and successfully with customers.

“Trying to take advantage of a technicality in the Fair Labor Standards Act is improper because the performers are essentially trying to double dip. They’ve never performed as employees; they’ve never contributed as employees; they’ve never expressed a desire to be employees.”

Typically, he said, dancers collect a small amount of money as a result of these lawsuits, while attorneys enrich themselves.

“There’s no way to stop these guys from filing these lawsuits,” he said. “They’re popping up everywhere all over the country. The vulnerability (of the club owners) is limited only by the avarice of the plaintiffs’ counsel.”

Rohlsen’s lawyer, Gadd, said it was a “curious notion” that the dancers’ lawyers are getting rich by bringing these cases.

“After all, we are talking about an entire class of young females who dance for the entertainment of the male customers that support these establishments,” he added. Gadd and Rohlsen said Baby Dolls is an employer because the club sets the rules for work.