CANADA — Toronto Councilor Howard Moscoe insists that local strip club employees have nothing to fear from their city, in spite of what other municipalities have threatened.At issue is a push to license all strip club employees, regardless of what they do within the business. Currently, the role-model for this legislation is Kingston, which requires that every club worker, including but not limited to dancers, must be licensed in order to keep their jobs.
Moscoe, seeing the legal threats inherent in such a law, if not the moral implications, insists that “Toronto bylaws do not discriminate. There is no possibility that everyone working in a club in Toronto will be licensed.”
In the case of Kingston, any person wishing to work at a strip club in any capacity must pay $100 for a special license. That means that every cook, ever dishwasher, every bouncer, and every doorman must cough up the cash before being allowed the privilege of a job. No other business must obey these regulations. Were such a law to be passed in Toronto, it is estimated that 10,000 people working in 35 clubs would be forced to apply for the license, which includes a police security check.
Kingston, which only has one strip club, has a February 28th meeting at City Hall planned to discuss the bylaw, which had no input from the public prior to its passage, according to Tim Lambrinos of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada.
When the city’s officials decided that they wanted to more fully control the lone club, it decided to avoid claims of discrimination that had tossed out another city’s law, which had exclusively called for the licensing of dancers. Instead, Kingston chose to demand the licensing of all club employees. Lambrinos’ association represents 54 Ontario clubs and does not want to see other municipalities embrace the licensing requirement.
