Texas Strip Clubs Now Have a $5 "Pole Tax"
Strip club patrons in Houston, Texas are getting the shaft – or the pole. At any rate, they are going to have to pay because the city council just passed a $5-per-customer fee on strip clubs. Unfortunately, we are unclear if this extra fee is to be paid at the door, or just randomly tucked into stripper’s panties throughout the evening under black lights and heavy metal music.
Interestingly, the money from this new “tassel tax” will be used as a means for relieving a backlog of more than 6,600 unprocessed rape kits in which police say they have not been able to tend to due to the rate in which they come in. And no, a rape kit does not include a ski mask.
“We have to do something to help the 4,000-plus women, children and men who have been sexually assaulted,” said Councilwoman Ellen Cohen, the author of the ordinance, which she modeled on a similar law she helped to pass as a state legislator. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”
While supporters of this strip club tax say that testing rape evidence will help exonerate the falsely accused, representatives of the strip club industry are against the fee because they say it unfairly links their business with sexual assaults. Not only that, but now that is one less $5 pitcher each customer will be able to buy on Thirsty Thursday.
Some members of the city council say they found a link in a study, which found that men who like to booze it up a little while watching women dance naked onstage also like to rape them. However, the Houston Police Department says that apartment complexes are the most common location for sexual assaults – strip clubs are 10th.
That seems pretty safe to us, but we’ll bring our $5 anyway.