The Naked and the Gypped

If you are a tourist taking a taxi to a topless bar don’t look to your cab driver for recommendations or as an ally. Your taxi driver is looking out for number one and as Frank Zappa knew: “Number one ain’t you; you ain’t even number two.”

Almost every major club pays taxi drivers a bounty per customer they drop off, usually around $20. $20---not coincidently---also, tends be the cover that many clubs charge per customer. See how it works. No one bothers to keep this a secret. In fact, there was a revolution in June when some hapless state lawmaker slipped language banning the practice into an unrelated law. Cabbies staged a protest that tied up traffic on the Strip and when the cabbies threatened to strike the governor quickly vowed to veto the bill. Still, victory wasn’t enough, 300 cabbies signed a petition demanding an investigation as to how the provision made it into the bill in the first place.

Success seems to have made the taxi drivers even more brazen; now  it is being reported that drivers are demanding that  topless bars pay bounties as high $90 a customer. This, of course, means more expensive drinks and eventually higher cover charges for you. But I tell tourists that you can fight back! Zoning is your friend. The tourist corridor of topless bars is set around Industrial Avenue adjacent to the Strip. It is an area with lots of auto repair shops, strip malls, empty lots and plenty of deserted looking buildings. In short, it is the middle of nowhere. But remember you are the boss and you have every right to demand, for example, that your taxi cab driver take you to the closed strip mall across the street from Cheetahs. My bet is the driver forgives the meter if you agree to go to Cheetahs.

(Photo by Lynn Park)