Former dancer at Lexington strip club sues over alleged improper pay
A Lexington strip club shorted exotic dancers on pay and required them to make “illegal kickbacks” to the club, a woman has charged in a federal lawsuit.
The complaint says Platinum Dolls did not pay dancers the required minimum wage or overtime for working more than 40 hours a week at the club on East New Circle Road.
The lawsuit seeks at least $100,000 in compensatory damages for the former dancer who filed it, as well as other damages and back pay.
It also seeks to act as a collective action for other dancers who worked at the club in the last three years. That number is believed to top 100, the lawsuit says.
Attorneys for Priscilla Rosado-Cruz filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in Lexington. The complaint says Rosado-Cruz, who lived in Kentucky at the time, was a dancer at the club for a year beginning in August 2018.
The lawsuit is against Lexington Golf & Travel LLC, which does business as Platinum Dolls; two member companies, Act Distributors and GDT (DE) LLC; and Charles G. “Jerry” Westlund Jr., who it said was or still is one of the main owners and managers.
The lawsuit said the club improperly classified the dancers as independent contractors, not employees. The purpose was to avoid paying them properly, the lawsuit alleges.
The dancers received only tips, no hourly wages, according to the complaint.
The club should instead have classified the dancers as employees and paid them the $2.13 federal minimum wage for tipped employees, as well as overtime, the lawsuit argues.
Platinum Dolls also allegedly improperly required Rosado-Cruz and other dancers to share their tips with employees such as managers, disc jockeys and bouncers, and imposed fees.
“The girls end up subsidizing the club,” said John P. Kristensen, a Los Angeles attorney who represents Rosado Cruz along with Liz J. Shepherd, a lawyer in Louisville.
Kristensen said there have been a number of similar lawsuits around the country in which strip clubs have claimed dancers were independent contractors. Those arguments “have been summarily rejected” in a number of courts, Kristensen said.
A federal judge in Georgia said in a 2019 ruling that courts look at several factors in determining whether a worker is a contractor or employee, including how much control the business has over how the workers does his or her job.
U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown said that recently, “other courts have considered the relationship between adult entertainers and the clubs where they perform, nearly universally finding adult entertainers to be employees.”
People who answered calls to Platinum Dolls said the club had no comment on the lawsuit.
A group of 17 models sued Lexington Golf & Travel in April 2020 for allegedly using their photos in advertisements on social media without permission or pay.
The models agreed to settlements with the club and two of its insurance companies, according to court records.
Court records don’t disclose the amount of the settlements, but attorneys argued in one motion that $255,000 was a reasonable payment in a deal covering six of the women.
