Alcohol a Big Moneymaker for Most Clubs

Gentlemen’s clubs such as The Godfather generate most of their revenue from alcohol sales, said Angelina Spicer, executive director of the Naples, Florida-based Association of Club Executives, the trade association for the adult gentlemen’s club industry.

Lindsay estimates that alcohol sales account for about 70 percent of his club’s revenue. He also charges a cover charge of $5 to $7, depending on the day. He serves food, but that’s not a moneymaker, he said.

He wouldn’t sell nearly as much of The Godfather’s champagne, however, if not for the dancers.

When they’re not dancing, they’re walking the floor in cocktail dresses, talking with the patrons and getting them to buy drinks that start at $20 apiece.

The dancers get half the revenue from each drink they sell, but they also pay a $20 daily fee to use the stages and a $5 fee for each couch dance they do, Lindsay said. He said the dancers charge between $30 and $40 for a couch dance.

At The Godfather, the dancers are independent contractors, responsible for keeping their own tax records.

That’s a common arrangement for these kinds of clubs, Spicer said, but it varies from state to state, with some states considering them employees.

Downtown at PT’s, where there are no stripper poles and the dancers gyrate on large tables surrounded by chairs, the dancers pay a $10 stage fee per day, said “Vaughn,” a 32-year-old dancer who would not give her real name.

She gets no money from drink sales, but she gets to keep 90 percent of the money she makes from lap dances. Patrons pay $30 for a two-song dance during off-peak hours, when Vaughn works.

She works the 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift because she wants to be home during the evening, when her kids are out of school. She makes about $100 to $300 a day, but she said she could earn three times that amount in the evening.

Her expenses include cocktail dresses, which can cost about $100 apiece, and about the same price for her shoes, which must have at least a four-inch heel.

Another PT’s dancer, “London,” who also declined to give her real name, said the dancers also get a percentage when they do lap dances in the VIP room, where patrons pay $175 for a 30-minute private dance and $300 for an hour-long dance.

She gets $100 of the 30-minute fee and $200 of the hour-long fee, she said.

She doesn’t like doing dances in the VIP room, she said, because she finds 30 minutes of continuous movement exhausting.