Texas dancers stripped of $5 for rape victims
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 31/12/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=FSHXA21D5AOURQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/30/wtexas130.xml
Customers at strip clubs in Texas are facing a controversial $5-a-head "pole tax" which is intended to pay for sex crime prevention programmes and rape crisis centres.
The surcharge, backed by women's rights campaigners, comes into effect on Tuesday and is expected to raise an estimated $40 million (£20 million) each year from those paying for lapdancers and pole dancers.
Texan strip clubs have traditionally allowed young women to pay their way through college
But it has already sparked a revolt among club owners and dancers, who claim the new charge will drive away customers and that it also violates their constitutional rights to freedom of expression.
The tax is seen as a government attack on the Lone Star state's old free-wheeling cowboy spirit and has aroused fierce opposition. Texan strip clubs have traditionally allowed young women to pay their way through college, or act as a step on the lowest rung of the showbusiness ladder.
The most famous alumnus of the bump and grind industry was the late Anna Nicole Smith, the voluptuous former Playboy centrefold who married an octogenarian oil billionaire after dancing topless for him at a Houston strip club.
At Players, a small topless bar next to a busy interstate highway on the edge of Amarillo, customers pay a $4 cover. Chandra Brown, who runs the club, said that the new charge would force patrons away.
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"They won't pay it. They won't come in. They can't afford it," she said.
The Texas Entertainment Association, which represents the industry, is suing to block the new tax at a hearing on January 22.
It says the levy infringes the constitution's First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression, and is discriminatory as it selectively targets their businesses.
Owners and dancers also resent the implied link between their industry and sex crimes.
Meanwhile, some legal experts fear that it sets a dangerous precedent and could, for example, expose abortion clinics in Bible Belt states to punitive taxes.Texas's 151 strip joints range from "gentlemen's clubs" for rich businessmen for whom $5 is nothing, to dimly-lit dive bars.
Most are, however, located on city outskirts where they are often awkward neighbours with mega-churches, another Texan institution.
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