California Wage Law Violations Claimed by Exotic Dancer

A woman who worked for a gentlemen’s club is claiming she was paid nothing except for tips while she worked there and that the club committed California wage law violations.

Plaintiff Lauren Byrne, a former exotic dancer for Spearmint Rhino gentlemen’s club, claims that the managing company of the club, Santa Barbara Hospitality Services, Inc. violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when it did not pay her for hours worked.

According to her complaint, the company failed to pay state-mandated minimum wages and overtime and by doing that, committed California wage law violations. Byrne said, “The FLSA violation raised in this lawsuit is straightforward — defendants do not pay their employees anything.”

Notably, five years ago the same gentlemen’s club was ordered to pay nearly $13 million in a wage and hour lawsuit regarding employee misclassification. Exotic dancers claimed they were employees of the company and that the misclassified them as independent contractors.

After the settlement, the nightclub company agreed that it would begin treating their dancers as either employees or partners.

When Byrne worked for the Santa Barbara location of the nightclub, she alleges that included in the list of California wage law violations she suffered was the fact that she was not paid minimum wage for her hours worked, and she also was not paid overtime.

In fact, she says, she was not paid at all. She was forced, she claims, to pay for entrance to the club and then was only allowed to accept tips from patrons. She was required to divide those tips with managers and the club itself, she claims.

Under California labor law, managers who have the ability to fire and hire are not allowed to split tips with employees.

Additionally, Byrne says that during their long shifts, she and other dancers were not allowed to take proper rest and meal breaks.

When she left the employment of Spearmint Rhino, she claims she was owed money that the company never paid to her.

Her California wage law violations lawsuit reads, “Defendants often failed to compensate plaintiff and other workers like her at federal- and state-mandated minimum wage rates, and failed to provide plaintiff and others like her with commensurate overtime.”

Byrne made mention of the 2012 California wage law violations lawsuit from before and stated that even though Spearmint Rhino now classifies dancers as “members,” it essentially treats its workers the same.

This California Wage Law Violations Lawsuit is Byrne v. Santa Barbara Hospitality, Inc., Case No. 5:17-cv-00527 in the United States District Court of the Central District of California, Eastern Division.

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