Strippergate and the Cost to Tourists
April 6, 2006 | 8:34
am
Former Cheetah's owner Mike Galardi is currently on the stand in our local Strippergate trial over his claims to have bribed elected officials in ways regular and novel. Galardi complained from the stand: "It got out of control. I just had everybody in town hitting me up for money."
But don't feel too bad for him. In passing, "The Review-Journal" reports on what Galardi's testimony reveals about the legal stuff Cheetah's did to earn money for all those bribes, which involved far more than cash from the customers' cover charges; the dancers were not paid by the club but were paying a house fee and most especially there was the ATM machine in the club that tourists had to make frequent runs to thanks to all the various pricey markups:
"A bottle of Budweiser cost the club 75 cents; Cheetah's charged $6. Aside from the alcohol, the club made money from strippers, who paid a house fee of $60 to $80 to work a shift. 'If you have 500 girls working a day, that's a lot of money," Galardi said. Revenue was also generated from ATM machines; managers split a $7 surcharge for each transaction."
Doesn't all this make a lapdance sound a lot less sexy?
