Former dancer sues Charlotte strip club Leather & Lace, says she was cheated pay
One of Charlotte’s most established strip clubs is accused of shorting a dancer’s pay.
Leather & Lace South End charged strippers a “house fee” to perform and paid them from communal tips in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a lawsuit filed Friday against the company that runs the club, MAL Entertainment Inc., and its owner, David “Slim” Baucom Jr.
“Defendants have been in the exotic dancing industry for years and are familiar with the long line of federal cases holding that entertainers in this industry are employees as that term is defined by the FLSA,” the complaint states.
A representative for MAL and Baucom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
Leather & Lace belongs to “one of the largest strip club enterprises in the Southeast,” the Charlotte Observer reported in 2014.
MAL, the company that runs it, boasts two other Leather & Lace locations in the Charlotte area — one in University City and the other in Gastonia — and at least six strip clubs as far north as Mooresville and as far south as Rock Hill.
The South End location is known as just South for “those in the know,” the club’s website states.
The club kick-started Baucom’s adult entertainment business when it opened in 1987, the Observer reported. Baucom has since been entangled in storied exchanges involving bribery, tax evasion — and now federal wage violations.
According to Friday’s lawsuit filed in North Carolina federal court, Kisha Oliphant worked at Leather & Lace South End from July 2010 until July 2019.
During that time, the complaint alleges, dancers were treated as employees with set schedules and told what to wear, how to interact with customers and what to charge.
But instead of being paid as such, MAL wrongly classified its dancers as independent contractors to avoid FLSA requirements, according to the lawsuit.
Dancers were charged a “house fee” contingent on when they arrived to work and paid “exclusively through tips,” which they had to share with with disc jockeys and security workers who otherwise didn’t receive them, an attorney for Oliphant said in the complaint.
She’s seeking unpaid wages, overtime, misappropriated tips and attorneys’ fees as a result.
The lawsuit mirrors allegations that have cropped up against adult entertainment clubs across the country in recent years, including at least two in Charlotte.
Five dancers at Cameo — the since-shuttered strip club near Charlotte Douglas airport — sued in 2018 saying they were owed “years of back wages, overtime and interest,” the Observer reported. A woman who worked at Club Onyx on Old Pineville Road filed a similar lawsuit last year alleging the club pooled its dancers’ tips and classified them as independent contractors.
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Former dancer sues Charlotte strip club Leather & Lace, says she was cheated pay."
