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Strippers purged in Glass Slipper drug crackdown
By adamg on Tue, 08/27/2013 - 12:54pm
The Glass Slipper, one of downtown Boston's two remaining strip clubs, has fired seven strippers since June, when workers found one of the women nearly unconscious from an apparent cocaine overdose in a club bathroom, one of its owners says.
Michael Bennett, co-owner of the Combat Zone remnant on Lagrange Street, told the Boston Licensing Board this morning that several strippers tried slipping drugs into the club even after he ordered doormen to check all employees' bags following the June 29 incident.
According to Bennett and BPD Lt. Det. Stephen Meade, a dancer found another dancer in trouble in a second-floor women's room around 7 p.m. "She was sitting on a toilet, shivering rapidly and appeared to be under physical duress," Meade said, reading from a report by the first police officer to arrive on scene. She denied doing any drugs, but another dancer led police to a bag in which they found five needles and two plastic bags containing "a white powdery substance believed to be cocaine," Meade said.
Bennett said the club already had a zero-tolerance drug policy, which included warnings on hiring and signs throughout employee areas. He added that while he had sometimes kept his eye on "entertainers" who appeared to be potential drug users, this particular dancer had shown no signs of problems in the six to eight months she had performed there.
"I've already fired six people," for trying to bring drugs in, he continued.
The board decides what action, if any, to take at a Thursday meeting.
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Comments
One of three?
isn't there still also Highland Tap in Roxbury?
You're right
Changed the original post to "downtown Boston."
Interestingly enough, the
Interestingly enough, the lights at Aga's have not been on at late hours in the past few times I've driven by. Of course it is only a bikini bar. Unfortunately, I was never able to get the picture of of the large painted letters that were there for about a week a couple years back
strippers and drugs?
is this the onion?
Nah, the comment below is.
Nah, the comment below is.
You know what would make this not a problem?
Legalizing drugs. It's 2013, nobody needs to be protected from themselves anymore. Anybody over the age of 12 knows damn well what cocaine is and what it does. Anybody over the age of 18 is an adult, and if an adult wants to die, that's their prerogative.
Legalizing drugs
Since I just drink wine and on festive occasions have a Manhatten, I have no personal interest in whether "drugs are legalized."
But your assertion that because it's 2013, (as though we're smarter than everybody who has ever lived before us) that "nobody needs to be protected from themselves anymore" "Anybody over the age of 18 is an adult etc. etc." completely dismisses the damage that the people who choose drugs do to the people and community they live in.
I don't want addicts around me. I don't want them lying in the parks, begging on the streets. I don't want them having children they destroy through neglect that turn their anger on the world.
Most of the people I know who are adamant about legalizing drugs just want their own use legalized. I understand. But there are millions who can't manage their drugs and if drugs are legal there will many more abandoned feral children roaming the streets.
"Abandoned feral children roaming the streets"?
Now there's an image for ya.
Guess what
That happens anyways. Treating it as a crime instead of a health problem does not make it better.
Of course we're smarter than everybody who lived before us
We're not uncuring polio here. We as a species have accumulated more intelligence. We just seem dumber because we've bred so many more dumb people.
Alchohol
causes more of the issues you speak of than all other "illegal" drugs combined.
Shouldn't the government protect you from your booze? You might have too many and drive you know. Why aren't you advocating alcohol prohibition since you think our rights need to be curtailed based on the irresponsibility of others? Why won't you think of the children!?
But, you enjoy a little booze from time to time, so it's OK.
Why is the boards business?
This is a personnel matter. The stripper showed up at work intoxicated as well as breaking the workplace rule of no drugs. They called the cops, ambulance ride and shes fired. Done deal and the board shouldn't be concerned.
Even if drugs were legal, which they should be, you still can't show up at work intoxicated or bring items prohibited by your employer.
The answer is in your comment
When city resources are deployed (EMTs and police), it becomes the board's business, because the business is operating under a particular city license (probably two in this case - one for liquor, the other for entertainment).
Ok, I'm trying to understand this
So do they get involved in other issues? Say two employees get in a fight in the kitchen and the police and EMT's are summoned? Do they really get involved anytime the cops or emts are sent to a licensed establishment?
What is their endgame besides wasting the managers time? "Try not to hire stripper that OD anymore." Would they really sanction a place over something like this? To do so would be crazy.
Any time the police show up to investigate a possible felony
Employee on employee A&B would count. So would a drug investigation (Here's a guy who got two restaurants in trouble first for the former, then for the latter).
We'll find out Thursday whether they sanction the club. At least one board member always asks the police if there were any way the club could have done anything differently to prevent whatever the incident was. Sometimes the police say "nope" and often the board takes no action.
Since no alcohol was involved...
Only the entertainment license could be suspended?
No
The Boston Licensing Board, which doesn't enforce entertainment licenses (that, of course, being the purview of the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing, and, yes, of course Boston has two separate licensing bodies, which typically hold two sets of hearings on every single incident) can suspend or revoke a club's liquor license for any illegal activity on its grounds (or on the street or parking lot outside), regardless of whether alcohol was involved. Basically, the idea is to try to prevent buckets o' blood in Boston, which doesn't always work (see Ups N Downs, Packy Connors, the Ave. Tav., etc., etc. - what does seem to be working is the artificial scarcity of licenses, which is getting the owners of such places to sell their licenses to better heeled restaurants along the waterfront, who do more to curb violence).
Overpriced licenses, under-served communities
Overpriced licenses produces under-served communities of the poor, unemployed, and working class, who won't be sipping expensive appletinis and micro-brews in their neighborhood or the seaport district. That in itself reduces violence around bars. If they really wanted to reduce crime, don't allow section 8 vouchers to be used in high crime areas. Make Sec. 8 voucher use get similar scrutiny to alcohol licenses - too much crime in a building or neighborhood, and payments for that area stop when leases expire and within a year. Can resume when crime is below city average for 3 years.
You know...
It is strippers like this that give whores a bad name. I mean come on, can't a guy see some trim around here with the talent being either coked up or riddled with C-section scars?
Another industry destroyed by Internet
Its not just newspapers, travel agencies, book stores, and video stores being devastated by the Internet. Naked pictures and porn for free on-line has hurt both supply and demand at strip clubs. Yes, supply. Would a struggling student like Scott Brown want to pose naked today when images disperse world-wide in seconds? How many college girls are now willing to dance naked for book money? The cost of education has also priced out many possible dancers. With $80,000 or more of school loans to pay off, a few thousand dollars for dancing isn't worth it when potential employers could now more easily find out about it. Damn Al Gore.
FYI
That stripper with the librarian glasses that tells you she's stripping to pay for college: she's lying.
not entirely
I do know someone who paid off law school dancing at glass slipper, passed the bar, and is now a successful attorney.
Entertainment law?
Entertainment law pays well! Did she go into employment law? Ballet dancers pass the barre, exotic dancers pass the pole.
Board issues ruling
No violation.