Peeling off a little more ... cash Proposal would have patrons at strip clubs pay $10 state tax
By ROBERT GAVIN, Staff writer First published in print: Thursday, March 12, 2009 ALBANY So much for naked ambition.
Topless clubs across the Capital Region are steaming over a Brooklyn lawmaker's proposal to pinch their patrons another $10 a head and say it is more than they can bear.
"I think it's ridiculous," said Matt Morizio, a disc jockey at DiCarlo's Gentlemen's Club on Central Avenue in Colonie. "It's stupid ...as if we're not paying enough."
Assemblyman Felix Ortiz wants to pump the cash into the fight against human trafficking, though some Capital Region bar patrons would just as soon peel the "pole tax" off the drawing board.
And some were hardly shy about it.
"They're gonna have a hard time collecting that," said Bill Barnes, 33, of Colonie, while sitting inside Muddy's Too, a bar in Watervliet at which topless women serve drinks.
Barnes called it just another way to soak taxpayers and, in this case, ones with less money.
"It makes for a very uncomfortable situation," he said.
Another man at the bar soon chimed in, "They're gonna tax air pretty soon."
Patrons aren't the only ones who oppose the legislation. When told of the proposed tax, Kylie, a 27-year-old dancer at Shenanigan's Gentleman's Club in Colonie, stopped dead in her clear stiletto heels.
"Wow!" the brown-haired dancer said. "Ridiculous! We already have a door charge. Maybe they should get rid of that and legalize weed instead."
Ortiz's proposed legislation places a $10 per customer surcharge on "patrons of 'adult entertainment' establishments that serve food or drink along with nude or semi-nude dancing." If passed, the money would go to programs for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and child prostitution, Ortiz said in a news release.
The manager of a Central Avenue strip club requested anonymity, but questioned the motives of a downstate assemblyman proposing such a tax at a time when New York City just funded a new stadium for the New York Yankees.
"Did you see how much that place cost?" the manager said of the $1.3 billion stadium, which cost more than any stadium ever built.
A DiCarlo's manager, identifying herself as Carmella, said customers already are charged $5 at the door after 7 p.m. The club pays its dancers, she said, noting most other strip-club dancers pay house fees and keep the tips.
"If they pass this, it will kill our business," she said. "I've been here 13 years. The money is not here like it used to be. We're in a recession... 15 dollars to come into a bar?."
Must the $10 payment be made in singles ($1 bills)? Will the club patrons receive a form/receipt so that they can claim the payment as a tax credit on their year end filings?
Must the $10 payment be made in singles ($1 bills)? Will the club patrons receive a form/receipt so that they can claim the payment as a tax credit on their year end filings?
This proposal is dead on arrival and Paterson knows it, which is why he has already announced that this tax scheme is scrapped - along with the proposed taxes on sugared sodas, iPod downloads, haircuts etc.
May have cost our former disgraced Governor a great deal of money.
Just think of the tax revenue that could have been collected if it was in place during the Spitzer administration.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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