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From: Vautrin, Josie B To: Council Comment Cc: Garwood, Robin D. Subject: FW: Written Testimony and procedural questions about hearing Date: Friday, August 09, 2019 1:16:02 PM Attachments: written feedback 1.pdf Written Feedback 2.pdf Written feedback 3.pdf Written Feedback from Performers.pdf RSP Final.pdf

To include in the record for the public hearing at PECE on 8/12 for the Adult Ordinance --- Dear Josie,

I am attaching several documents to this email. The first is the one-pager for SWOP's need assessment study. If possible, could you share this with the council members?

Second, I have attached a few different pdfs of compiled written feedback from people with lived experience as dancers. Some of the feedback is handwritten and was shared at a community engagement meeting we held back in July. Most people elected to remain anonymous, and a few attached their names. There may be other feedback coming, and if I get more I will forward it your way.

In general, the feedback falls into three categories: racism and favoritism, pay structure and economic exploitation, and health and safety concerns. As you will see, multiple people wrote very lucidly about how the pay structure reinforces racism, , and poor working conditions.

THE REAL REPORT: A NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT WORKERS IN THE MINNEAPOLIS STRIPPING INDUSTRY A Collaboration Between SWOP-Minneapolis, Minnesota State University, & Sex Workers Outreach Project - USA

BACKGROUND After learning about possible new ordinances affecting strip clubs, Andi Seymour, Jayne Swift, and Ramona Falls (SWOP-Minneapolis) partnered with Eric Sprankle, Machensey Shelgren, and Alex Twohy (Minnesota State University) and Katie Bloomquist (Vice President of Sex Workers Outreach Project - USA) to conduct a needs assessment of current workers in the local stripping industry. The goal was to ensure workers and the only local rights organization were included in the process of revising local ordinances regulating the stripping industry.

THE STUDY The study was funded by Third Wave Fund, Urgent Action Fund, and Minnesota State University, and was approved by the IRB at Minnesota State University in January 2018. Survey data collection and interviews were conducted between February and May, and participants were recruited through personal networks, visits to local strip clubs to inform dancers of the project, and (with a focus on forums frequented by national and local sex workers). 60 dancers completed the study’s survey, and of those, 31 were interviewed.

RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This study recommends the following, as possible steps that the Minneapolis City Council could take to improve labor rights and workplace conditions in the local stripping industry:

Physical Safety, Cleanliness, And Health: While 77% of the sample indicated feeling safe from violence and harassment from customers, 40% indicated they have been hurt at work from physical structures (e.g., splinters on stages). Furthermore, over half (56%) of participants reported concerns with cleanliness. Issues with the areas and dressing rooms were the most commonly reported workplace health concerns. • is responsible for maintaining safe stage, floor areas, and dressing rooms that are free from splinters, glass and other debris, and uneven carpet • Hired cleaning services that clean all areas of the workplace, including dressing rooms, on a daily basis. This includes making rubbing alcohol and wipes for stage areas readily available • Security escorts to cars

Pay structure: The large majority (65%) of the sample reported being required to tip management, and 71% of the sample disagree with requiring splitting tips with other employees. • Eliminate tipping of managers and other salaried staff • Consistent and uniform house , fines, and expectations of tipping non-salaried staff clearly outlined in contract

Contracts: The language and policies used in contracts were unclear for 21% of the sample. Likely due to the lack of clarity in contracts, especially surrounding termination policies, 39% of participants worried about job security most or all of the time. Many reported not receiving contracts at all. • Workers must be provided with a hard copy of a clearly written contract that outlines rights as independent contractors, anti-discrimination and policies, procedures and reasons for termination, and be provided of and employees who deal with contract grievances

Discrimination and favoritism: The majority (63%) of participants reported seeing or experiencing discrimination, and 66% reported management engaging in favoritism most or all of the time. • Information about how to report racial discrimination without fear of retribution • Management and support staff undergo training on racial bias and sensitivity and sexual harassment

DISCUSSION The high sample size in our study is a strong testament to having sex workers recruit and collect data from our own communities. We believe this is the best way to collect data that is accurate, representative, and reflective of the needs of the community, as participants engage with their peers in much more holistic way (compared to the ways in which sex workers engage with outsiders and/or those who claim to be “experts”).

If the city council adopts our recommendations, Minneapolis would be a rare example of how city governments can help promote labor rights for those working in the .

To support our work, look for updates on social media and share it using #RealStripperReport @SWOPMinneapolis [email protected] @jamswift13 [email protected] @DrSprankle [email protected] @k_bloomquist [email protected] @lana_de1gay @anarchyandi

Written Feedback from Performers/Workers Minneapolis Adult Entertainment Ordinance

Anon 1 Pay/Tipping One night, after several hours in a private room, I had checked out and exchanged my “funny money” for actual money, and I was making my usual rounds of tipping the cook, the dj, and management. I felt that I had tipped them fairly for their service that evening. I had driven to work this night so I was waiting to retrieve my car from valet, and this night it seemed to be taking a particularly long time. Imagine my horror when my manager came outside with a black trash bag with all of my belongings inside and told me he “never wanted to see [my] fucking face in this club again.” I immediately broke down in tears, I was so distraught I could barely drive.

Another manager took pity on me, grabbed the bag with my belongings in it, put it back inside, helped calm me down, and told me we would deal with this in the morning. After several frantic texts to all managers the next afternoon, I was told I could come in that evening to have a meeting with management. I reluctantly went in. I sat down with the manager who had yelled at me, and another manager.

The manager who had yelled at me told me that he felt “insulted” and that I had “undertipped” them. He did the math from my earnings, and I had tipped them roughly 10%, which, because of how much I had made the previous night, came out to $100. He told me that the “expected and acceptable” tip was 20%, or $200. With the way credit card work at that club, 10% of the funny money goes back to the club, so on this $1000 night, I received $900. They expected $200 of that $900, simply for being there. They did not assist me in any other way, and, to top it off, they had also already received a tip from the guest I was in the private room with. So, this would have left me with $700 of the $1000 I earned. Additionally, tips for the cook, dj, and valet are expected, after all of that, I would’ve left with roughly $600.

While this is still considered a great night by all means and possibly an entire week’s pay in other industries, I believe that I have a right to keep the money that I earn, from a workplace where I already pay a significant amount of money to work there. I hope the passing of this ordinance will protect fellow and future entertainers from this exploitation and allow us to work in a harassment-free environment.

Anon 2 Pay/Tipping I think this helps by acknowledging that dancers build the wealth! We deserve respect and safety and rights which is probably news to lots of people on management. My tip out has been higher than what my calculations on how many i did was… the slip of paper the club gives at the end of the night had a much higher number that I had to pay the club than I was expecting based on my calculations for the cut they should have taken on the dances I did, so I think I was overcharged.

Management cares more about customers who come in and don’t spend money than they do about dancers who work at the club. I have been yelled at by management for "strong arming" and "bothering" people for tips…. Management does not tell people who sit at the tip rail but don't tip to tip, so it falls on the dancer to ask for tips if they are on stage and no one is tipping them. I…need to feel like management respected me and allowed me to work the way I want and interact with customers in a way that feels best to me.

Health and Safety We need safety because right now I don't feel safe telling management when I have a problem, because I've been blamed for issues in the past. I don't feel like staff have my back which causes anxiety and stress at work.

Customers should be asked to leave when they violate a dancers boundaries. I need customers who assault me to be kicked out, their name and id taken and stored, and I should be able to have that info and decide what to do with it. There needs to be an X-list of violent/horrible customers at the front door, and photocopies of bad customers ids in a binder at the door. There needs to a a for bad customers who try to get back in other than management/ staff/door staff recognize them and turn them away because that is NOT enough. Customers should be asked to leave when they violate a dancers boundaries. This would create a culture of prioritizing dancers safety. Customers always seem to management's priority, rather than the dancer safety.

The club makes so much $ so whyy cant they spend some of it on a janitor and making the place nice n clean?? There are bumps under the carpet in two areas that cause you to roll your ankle if u catch your heel on them wrong. There are several spots in between the stage and the tip rail that aren’t level so sometimes you trip or wobble during a stage set and its …dangerous

Enforcement I need to know that clubs cant retaliate in other ways… I need to know howww they ( also who is they?) will enforce no tip out and how dancers will be NOTIFIED that tip out is illegal and should not be happening…. Will the city put posters up in clubs? How will that information be made public to the people in the clubs, will there be consequences for [management] accepting tips?

Anon 3

Pay arrangement/Tipping

I have had to tip out who have made more tips then me, management, security who have not done their job properly, and djs that get their own tips who don't even play music you like or mess with your private dances by calling you up when you are walking someone to VIP. … Keeping more of the money I make would allow me to eat more regularly and keep up to "uniform" standards - outfits and are expensive and get worn out from all the movement.

Health/Safety We shouldn't be developing coughs because the pop and water lines aren't cleaned out properly at the bars, because we deserve to have functioning toilets, because paper towels and hand drying are a necessity for staying healthy.[I need] accountability from the staff to do their job well and respect dancers.

Enforcement We need liaisons whom the dancers can trust as well as city partner/s to dole out fines to management and staff who do not comply.

Anon 4

Pay/Tipping [How have you experienced economic exploitation? ] Was told that tipping the manager was in my "best interest." A taken from each and my time spent with customers then expected to pay a house fee on top. … untipping managers may result in less shifts or worse treatment by management.

I feel that the company should be only expected to pay their employees. It's more professional that way. Managers shouldn't expect tips. We've been very kind and liberal for too long.

Safety/Health A clean environment in this kind of industry is extremely necessary! …The security hired by the company is updated and the dancer's safety is number 1. If a performer feels unsafe management needs to know!

Enforcement [Future needs to be] recorded and posted. That there will be statutes on these matters like any other company rules to be upheld. Mangers are fined or held accountable if they are not carrying through the statute and not having to worry about loss of if we complain that things aren't being upheld.

Anon 5

Pay arrangement/tipping There is immense pressure at both Downtown and Seville to tip out managers and all staff, including the DJ and house mom explicitly, and the hosts, bartenders, cage and bouncers, as well. At DTC I was told by the manager who oriented me, (Manager X), that I am required to tip him 20% of my earnings, as well as tip out the DJ and the house mom at the end of my shift. There was nothing about his language that indicated this is optional. At Seville I was told tipping is an “industry standard” and quoted the same percentage for the manager and a $20 minimum with “more on a good night” for the DJ. Manager X at DTC explained the checkout process to me, whereby I must retrieve a slip for him and the DJ (and the house mom if at night) to sign as proof I have tipped them and turn it in at the end of every shift. This makes the process of tipping feel very official. Sure enough, without turning in the slip you cannot leave, a lesson I learned firsthand. One night shortly after I started, I was working with my friend who experiences mental health struggles. Her struggles are exacerbated (as for all of us) by consuming alcohol, which the club heavily pressures us to order throughout our shifts. She was having a hard night, and her safety and wellbeing were my priority. Instead of the normal checkout process, I shoved a wad of at a manager and took her home. The next day we both received enraged texts from Jason informing us that we were both fired from the night shift until we learned how to behave and were stuck working the day shift, which presents much fewer economic opportunities for dancers. I learned I must check out the right way by tipping everyone on the slip and getting their signature, or I would be punished. If you don’t follow the rules or if he just doesn’t like you (i.e. you are a dancer of color or of non-normative body type), Manager X will imprison you on the dayshift indefinitely. Such forms of control are manufactured in other ways as well. If you do tip out but don’t tip out well, managers will jeopardize your ability to make money in duplicitous ways. They know who the high spending customers are and get to choose which dancers are tipped off or introduced to them. We aren’t even allowed to enter “VIP” areas (different from VIP rooms) without a manager’s escort. The DJ will skip your turn to go on stage, often an opportunity for tips, if you don’t regularly tip him out well. Additionally, the house fee system effectively schedules dancers by charging us higher and higher fees later into the shift. This is so the club can ensure we will show up early, when there are very few customers, thus little money to be made but many of us for the picking. If they refuse to pay us a , provide us any benefits, grant us bargaining power or protect us against discrimination, we should at least be able to make our own economic decisions. They also take a large cut of our VIP room sales (20-30%), and we are even pressured to get customers to tip the managers themselves on top of the sale. I was told by a manager at Seville I had to do everything I could to “help him out.” Often, I will ask for a tip for myself, and the customer will insist they have already tipped me because the notion that they would’ve been tipping management is so absurd. As a result of all of these tactics, I invariably leave with less than 50% of what customers believe they are paying me. Furthermore, we shouldn’t be paying any fees to the house at all, when we are the only reason customers come to the club and make irrational purchases in the first place. In addition to a steep , the club makes outrageous profits on bottles of cheap priced at 300% (or more) of their cost and $36 shots, which I am incessantly pressured to sell and retaliated against if I do not. No regular bar could get away with these markups and gratuitous fees, and regular bars are profitable businesses. Furthermore, they are profitable without stealing the tips of those who facilitate their sales and even pay their salespeople. The idea that the would cripple financially without these wage theft practices is completely unfounded.

Favoritism is directly tied to tipping, producing a positive feedback loop where favored dancers make more money and consequently have the ability to tip out more. The reverse is also true. That race and class privilege are the primary factors that determine whether you will experience the positive or negative iteration of this loop is undeniable, and I see their manifestations every day. I have seen many friends who are struggling financially be the first to be fired for things others get away with regularly; often the only difference is the color of their skin. Dancers who are unable to or refuse to tip generously are much less likely to be aided when in need of management’s help and much more likely to be punished or fired for breaking the rules/norms or for being violated by a customer. Eliminating tipping would eliminate a major weapon for discrimination and curtail such stark discriminatory practices.

Why do you need stronger health and safety regulations of the local stripping industry? In my brief experience, the dressing rooms at Seville were pretty well maintained and clean. At DTC, the areas of the club that are only used by dancers, specifically the dressing rooms and the stage, are incredibly unsanitary and unsafe. We must cover all the chairs with paper towels or garbage bags because they are so unclean and because they’re falling apart and dangerous. In the winter, the heating was broken in the dressing rooms and wasn’t fixed for weeks, and they waited long into the winter to even turn it on at all. There was a major leak in the ceiling in the dressing room that wasn’t addressed for months and has probably produced dangerous mold in the walls. The stage at both Seville and DTC are very rarely, if ever, cleaned, so that I have skipped work when injured because I’m afraid to risk infection. If I wear white on stage, I have to throw away my tights after because the grime has ruined them. I have tripped on uneven carpet many times. If we were in control of our workplace, addressing these hazards would be a top priority. Club owners just don't care about our health and safety, and I think they ought to be required to.

What do you need to feel safer in your workspace? How does this law help? Eliminating tipping and other wage theft, as well as cleanliness and safety of the space are by far my greatest concerns. At Seville, the VIP rooms are the least private VIP rooms I’ve so far encountered at a strip club. This is significant because it is the club where I felt the most unsafe. VIP rooms are central to my ability to make money, and this is first and foremost because of their perceived level of privacy. At DTC, the rooms are much more private than at Seville, but at DTC I have felt completely safe to ask for help or end a session if I feel threatened or violated by a customer. This is in part because I am privileged enough to be able to tip out management better than others. It is also because the culture at DTC surrounding privacy and autonomy is healthier than at other clubs. At Seville, there are no walls on the rooms, rather, they are divided only by sheer curtains. This means the rooms can be completely surveilled by management and the likelihood for punishment of dancers is increased. This is because management gets to decide when a violation of the rules are taking place, as well as who is to blame. If management is playing the role of the police in this surveillance-centered environment, they will see dancers as inherently suspect and criminal. I was assaulted by a customer at Seville and management “caught” me being assaulted. The manager, Hunter, called me a “whore” and “dirty” and punished and hazed me for weeks after the fact. I would try to bring customers to the VIP, and he would tell me all of the rooms were full when all were empty or that the rooms costed three times as much as they actually do. The assault itself was less traumatic than the intense shame I was made to feel about my assault and the stigmatizing and isolating effects of targeted backlash from management and other staff. If the assault had happened at DTC, I would’ve been able to leave the session and tell management, and they would have believed me. They would have asked me what I need and come to my aid. In fact, at Seville, I was told if I feel unsafe or uncomfortable in a room, I was only allowed to end the session after a second violation or assault by the customer. In this way, the burden of assault prevention, as well as blame, is put entirely on the dancer. The lack of privacy and culture of suspicion at Seville also meant that it was very hard to get a customer into the VIP without assurance we would try to hide from management. This made the entire session into a stressful and shameful balancing act, where I did not feel in control. Managers should be support resources for dancers, not our police. Violation of boundaries looks different for everyone, and it is not for someone to judge from the outside. Violations of the actual law can be handled by dancers as well; we know the law better than anyone. We need safe avenues to report these violations without fear of blame or coercion in return. We don’t need less privacy or more surveillance. We need a cultural shift within management psychology and practice that centers our needs. This begins by eliminating their ability to leverage their willingness to support us on how well we tip. This law will be a crucial first step in creating a safer and more supportive environment for all of us.

What do you need from city government to ensure that this law, if passed, will be enforced? To me, enforcement doesn’t look like lower walls or video surveillance. It looks like labor rights. We should be entitled to the same rights as all other workers. Reducing the ability of management to exploit, coerce and discriminate against us is the best possible way to support us.

I do fear economic and other retaliation against us by corporate club moguls in response to this law. It is only a first step in strengthening our rights to safer, more equal and more democratic workplaces.

Anon 6 The [pay structure] needs to change…its outrageous