Strip-Club Moratorium Promotes Monopoly
Strip away all the nonsense about how government–a monopoly itself–protects competition and you will find that the opposite is often the case.
Bob Davis covets something that only Frank Colacurcio Jr. and four other Seattle business owners now have: the legal right to operate strip clubs in Seattle.
But the longtime comedy-club operator has been stymied by the city’s “temporary” moratorium on new strip joints — a restriction that has been in effect 15 years. That gives Colacurcio, who owns Rick’s strip club in Lake City, and other current club owners a de facto monopoly
By limiting the number of strip clubs, Seattle is protecting existing strip-club owners from competition. That makes them richer and more politically powerful.
Another valuable insight from the same article:
Meanwhile, he’s decided to push the city’s rules on nude dancing to the limit.
Hit by slow business at his downtown Urban Comedy Cafe, Davis recently decided to ditch no-name comedians in favor of nearly nude dancers on weekend nights.
In doing so, Davis is using a little-known loophole in state and city laws: He’s allowed to serve booze in his club and feature nearly nude female dancers, but the women have to remain on stage at least 6 feet from customers.
By contrast, strip clubs such as Rick’s can’t serve alcohol, but they can allow women to leave the stage and perform intimate “lap dances” with patrons.
Davis also must pay his dancers an hourly wage, while Rick’s requires women to pay the club more than $100 per shift, which they earn back in tips.
I had no idea that strippers paid club owners to perform. You see, you learn something new every day. Them nekid dancer ladies must be makin’ some good tips. Woo Hoo!
If they had more clubs to choose from, then they wouldn’t have to pay so much to dance. Limiting the number of clubs also limits the number of shifts. Women who want to dance naked in front of crowds of horny men have to compete for those shifts. With more shifts to fill, the clubs might have to pay for the best dancers, rather than the other way around.
And with more clubs and more lap-dancers to choose from, the club patrons would be able to get a lap-dance for less. More clubs=more shifts=more dancers competing for the attention of horny men. That would bring the price of a lap dance down.
Free markets are good for everybody except those who benefit from restricting competition; in other words, those who can’t compete.
Last year the covers were stripped off the “affair” between Seattle politicians and strip-club owners with the zoning-changes-for-compaign-contributions scandal.
I’ll have more on businesses hoppin’ in the sack with government in my upcoming post on Ayn Rand and the roots of war, which hopefully will be done by tomorrow.
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