Turns out that Strip Clubs aren’t recession resistant. Like most other businesses in this economic downturn, they’ve been squeezed. So how are they making sure that their bottom lines don’t sag? They’re cutting costs and getting creative…. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Credit Crunch, Entertainment, recession, Strip Clubs, Strippers
All publicity is good publicity: Ms. Newton has apparently been a busy bee since her story appeared on Page Six yesterday. She commented on our post where we noted the discrepancies between her blog and the Post story and thanked us for the coverage. She’s of course, updated her blog.
Watch just about every morning show tomorrow, and a few later this week. Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, and more calls are coming in!
Addendum: CNBC just aired a Natalie Morales report from The Today Show featuring Randi Newton / Ricks. Here it is:
Tags: g-string, Morgan Stanley, Randi Newton, Rick's, stripper, Wall Street
Earlier we noted a NY Post story that talks about how many professional former six figure salaried women fired in the crash have turned to stipping. One they cite is Randi Newton, 28.
“A few nights after I got laid off, I went with friends to a strip club to get drunk and forget my unemployment troubles,” Newton said. “The manager offered me a job as a dancer. I thought it was different. And fun.”
But The Post story’s timeline and facts seem to be a bit off from another version. From Ms. Newton’s account in her blog, she didn’t happen to wander into the strip club right after she was fired from Morgan Stanley; it doesn’t sound like she was fired from that gig — she had another job with a marketing company from which she was laid off. And the Miss America Organization scholarship recipient (and graduate of U Nebraska at Omaha) was a waitress for a year before taking her clothes off (which she did after getting dumped by her boyfriend and having gotten drunk). And she’s since retired her g-string (although it sounds like she still works for Rick’s doing publicity).
Oh, and by the way, in addition to her blog she has a publicist and a book that’s coming out at the end of 2009….
Tags: Morgan Stanley
It’s pretty bizarre to hear that working in a strip club women face less sexual harassment than they do on Wall Street, not to mention that the clubs are better run. But that’s what former Morgan Stanley (no stranger to sexual harassment lawsuits) financial analyst Randi Newton, 28, who was fired in the crash says. She’s one of many professional women formerly making over six figures in their former jobs who have taken up working the pole since getting axed. You can find her three to four nights a week at Rick’s Cabaret in Murray Hill.
The time has finally run out for gentlemens' club Scores, a favorite entertainment venue for many on Wall Street.
"It's over; it is what it is," said Scores lawyer George Weinbaum. Co-owner Elliot Osher confirmed the closing.
A
weak economy, the loss of the W. 27th St. Scores' liquor license and
the possibility the E. 60th St. joint would lose its booze ticket all
helped do in the flesh factory.
A new strip joint with a liquor
license will open at the East Side location, "but it won't be Scores
and the owners will be different," Osher said.
Famed sex den Scores, once a top moneymaker, can't jiggle out of financial troubles – NY Daily News
No more scoring a lap dance (or anything else) at Scores in NYC if the State Liquor Authority has anything to say about it – Wall Street Folly
Tags: Banking Culture
At least some Gentlemen’s clubs in NYC, like Rick’s Cabaret, are apparently still doing a brisk business despite Wall Street’s turmoil, although the boom times may turn to a bust for some. According to NY Magazine
Columbia
sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, who studies the city’s sex-worker industry,
warns that the clubs will soon see less business. “Fifty to 60 percent of
their client base, if not more, is finance guys,” he says. But high-end call
girls, he argues, will keep busy. “Those girls specialize in taking care of
their clients’ emotional needs and ‘wellness’—listening to their
problems, conversing,” he says. “Forty percent of the time, they’re not
even consummating.
Tags: Lehman Brothers
Business coming to a grinding halt: Even though many Wall Streeters aren’t supposed to be going to strip clubs any longer, at least on the company’s dime (most recently, Deutsche Bank), of course, many still find their ways to such establishments (*wink* *wink*) . So there may be more than a tear or two shed with the news that both Scores in NY City are likely to be closed down for good because their liquor licences are getting pulled (and what’s a strip club with out spirits to loosen up the libido and wallet?). It seems that at one of the two clubs — Scores West – hookers have been making themselves at home with the club owners turning a blind eye.
State Liquor Authority officials plan to
put out of business not only Scores West, but also Scores on the East Side, by
yanking the liquor licenses for the jiggle joints, officials said yesterday.
It’s a prospect that could chill the hearts of the mammary meccas’ many famous
frolicking fans – who over the years have included Lindsay Lohan, Kate Moss,
Russell Crowe, Queen Latifah and Jim Carrey.
The problem is that each club’s liquor license carries the names of the same
two club honchos, Elliot Osher and Richard Goldring. Losing the Scores West
license – which was to be physically confiscated last night – makes both Osher
and Goldring "prohibited persons" under state Alcohol Beverage
Control laws.
Tags: Banking Culture, Hookers
Wow. Times really are hard. Deutsche Bank is really turning the screws on bankers’ expenses. According to the Times of London, hookers, strippers and the like are now verboten (they’re no longer reimbursable expenses) even if they’re for bonding outings with clients. But there are even more indignities:
Second-class rail travel will be the norm
in the United States, while in Britain first-class tickets may be bought only
for journeys of more than two hours, and in Germany for trips longer than an
hour. Taxi trips during a bus or Tube strike will be repaid only with the
explicit approval of a banker’s line manager, and similar permission from on
high is required if lunch with a client is going to cost more than €65 (£52)
per person (the threshold may have to be raised a bit in London).And if this sounds a world away from the banker’s archetypal business trip of
penthouse suites and VIP lounges, it gets worse: Deutsche Bank employees
arriving on an early flight are now barred from expensive early hotel check-ins
and instead are expected to shower and shave at the airport.
Furthermore….
Tags: Banking Culture, Deutsche Bank, Hookers
A securities trader named Stephen Chang filed a lawsuit over a lapdance gone wrong, alleging that the stripper nailed him in the eye with the heel of her shoe.
Stephen Chang, a securities trader, said in
court papers filed Friday that he was at the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison
Square Garden and was getting a paid lap dance when the accident occurred early
Nov. 2, 2007.According to the lawsuit, as the dancer
swung around, the heel of her shoe hit him in the eye, causing him "serious
injuries."A man who identified himself as the manager
of the Hot Lap Dance Club said he was unaware of the accident or the state
Supreme Court lawsuit. The club’s lawyer, Stephen Ateshoglou, did not
immediately return a call.
Let’s assume that the trader is based in NYC (as opposed to visiting). Bloomberg lists several Stephen Changs who look like they may be based here, including Bank of America, Lehman Brothers, Platinum Partners and King Street Capital. There are more listed abroad. Will the real Stephen Chang who filed the lawsuit please stand up!
Man Files Suit, Claims Lap Dance Injury - AP via CBS News
Erik Langan, CEO of Rick’s Cabaret, the only publicly traded strip club chain — you may know them from the "Stockbrokers’ Due Diligence Ball" events that they throw — talks to Cody Willard on Fox Business’ "Happy Hour". He brought along a couple of friends…
Tags: Charts
Greg Calvino, a 45 year old trader formerly with RBC (and now with Thomas Weisel) is fighting with his ex-girlfriend, Elisa Kwon, in court over a $100,000 check he wrote to her early in their relationship that she cashed because she says he broke a no drugs, strippers and hookers promise that he made to her. She says that he agreed that she could cash the check if he misbehaved. He filed suit in July alleging extortion, looking to get his money back along with interest and damages. He claims to have written the large check to protect his career and reputation, and that she cashed it for no reason. But according to Kwon there are instant messages where Calvino admitted to going to Flashdancers and he failed a drugstore drug test showing that he partook of the white stuff:
Tags: Culture, Drugs, Hookers, investment banking, Lawsuit
Former Goldman Sachs analyst, Harvard
educated ballroom dancer extraordinaire and wannabe
novelist/screenwriter Eugene Plotkin, who masterminded last year’s well
publicized global insider trading ring featuring strippers,
a Croatian seamstress, a
U.S. Postal worker, BusinessWeek employees, a
Russian bath house and oh so much more, finally pleaded guilty. (Yah,
we know….that was one very long sentence!):
Plotkin admitted today to one count of
conspiracy and eight of insider trading. He faces a maximum of 165 years in
prison on all counts, prosecutors said. He agreed to forfeit $6.7 million.“I understand what I did was wrong and against the law,” he told U.S.
Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman in federal court in New York.
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Goldman Sachs, Insider Trading, Legal
Remember the six Dresdner Kleinwort women who filed the $1.4 billion lawsuit against the firm last year alleging a "pervasive pattern and practice" of sexual discrimination"? They’ve apparently come to a settlement. According to the bank it’s been "resolved without admission of liability to the satisfaction of the parties". The ladies are no longer with the firm and presumably are now awash in cash. If you recall, one of the women, Jyoti Ruta, claimed that she was forced to leave a deal closing dinner because the guys wanted to go to a strip club. Another plaintiff, Katherine Smith (pictured at left), a director of the equity trading desk in London, was dubbed "the Pamela Anderson of trading by one of her male colleagues. And Maria Rubashkina, a vp for corporate and external affairs in NY, claimed that a corporate finance managing director "routinely brought prostitutes
to the office during lunch hour."…..
The six employees, who have since left the
bank, claimed it treated women as "second-class citizens" and that men
were paid more and promoted more frequently. Dresdner Kleinwort, the investment
banking arm of Allianz, the German insurer, said the case was "without
merit". The women had failed to gain class-action status for the suit.
Tags: Dresdner, investment banking, Lawsuit, Legal, Revolving Door
Rick’s Cabaret, the publicly traded gentlemen’s club famed for hosting the "Stockbroker’s Due Diligence Ball" is sponsoring another cleverly named festive event, this one at it’s Minneapolis club: "Toys for TaTas" on December 15:
The gala event kicks off at 6 a.m. with a live on-location radio broadcast of the Half Assed Morning Show from Radio 93X. To help promote "Toys for TaTas" a Rick’s Cabaret dancer will be chosen as Hot Chick of the Day on 93X prior to the event.
This is pretty funny. Polly Courtney, who was interviewed by The Observer this past weekend, and who has penned the new apparently self-published book "Golden Handcuffs" detailing her disillusionment with investment banking — at Merrill Lynch as it turns out — has admitted to being a pole dancer at a club called "For Your Eyes Only" on a website. However, when asked about it by the Daily Mail, she claims that she was just being sarcastic and that "I’d never do anything like that". (Uh huh).
In the Observer article, Ms. Courtney describes her disillusionment with the banking business with its long,unpredictable hours and ample sexism, which is the subject of her novel. She even described how she never felt "properly invited to "lads night out". Ironically it appears that she might have been pretty comfortable if she had been properly invited.
We’re not knocking pole dancing. It’s really catching on as a form of exercise. Even Christine Schwarzman, wife of Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman has been observed to take a turn or two around a pole….
Tags: Books, Interns, Merrill Lynch, Pole Dancing
We meant to post this yesterday, but time just got away from us. On Sunday, The Observer featured an interview with Polly Courtney, who’s coming out with the novel "Golden Handcuffs" in November, about two recent college graduates who find themselves "working with, for, and against each other" at competing investment banking firms in London. "It is about ambition, resilience and shattered dreams, and what it means to sell your soul to the City."
And it’s something that she’s said to have experienced first hand as both an intern and in a full time job with a banking firm. In the interview, Ms. Courtney talks about being courted, as well as the perks and high pay that she received – but which ultimately came at the expense of being hugely overworked, subjected to unpredictable hours, sexism (including comments about how/why she got her job and never feeling properly invited to "lads night out") and nasty backstabbing. It wasn’t worth it to her. So the disillusioned banker chucked it to write her upcoming book.
By way of curiousity, we found that Ms. Courtney has a website where we notice that she has some interesting thoughts on the Helen Green court decision vs Deutsche Bank. (aka woman who was awarded £800,000 after having been bullied by female employees.). (More below).
Tags: Banking Culture, Books, Discrimination, Interns, Merrill Lynch
So did he take a little research jaunt to the club too? Or just write about it?: Dan Dorfman did a profile on Rick’s Cabaret this morning — the gentlemen’s club chain that thumbs its nose at the powers that be on Wall Street by sponsoring events like "The Stockbroker’s Due Diligence Ball". The roughly 1,200 dancers are independent contractors who don’t earn a salary, just tips. And they do quite well, earning between $3,000-$5,000 a week for 40 hours in the New York club; some take home as much as $3,000 a night. CEO Eric Langan’s goal is to expand the chain from 11 clubs (12 soon) up to 50 in 30 major markets (possibly including another in NY). Predictably, Mr. Dorfman isn’t thrilled with Rick’s as an investment. We’re not sure how he feels about the clubs themselves — he didn’t tell us if he did any hands on research for his article. But he says that Wall Street brokers seem to get pretty excited about the chain….
Fomer Merrill Lynch M&A analyst Stanislav Shpigelman, who was busted as part of the insider trading ring that included former Goldman Sachs employees, a stripper, a U.S. post office employee and several others, became the first domino to drop and plead guilty. He admitted to passing on inside information via cell phone to others nabbed in the plot. In a court appearance on Friday with his parents on hand, he said that he was "eternally regretful" for his role in the crime.
A plea agreement Shpigelman signed with prosecutors _ in which he admits to a single count of conspiracy to commit insider trading _ includes a recommendation that he serve between three and four years in prison after he is sentenced Nov. 17.
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
Today’s Craigslist entrees…
The New York Times has another background piece on the cast of characters in the most recent insider trading ring involving former Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch employees. Much of it is a rehash, but there is some new info in the piece: Monica Vujovic raked in $6,000-7,000 a night performing exotic dances according to a transcript of David Pajcin’s bail hearing. Yowsah! Pajcin badly impersonated Vujovic, his girlfriend, on the phone with Ameritrade where he did some of the illegal trading in her account, although Ameritrade didn’t monitor the account despite their suspicions. Oops. Pajcin and Vujovic made trades in her account over coffee at Starbucks. Pajcin had aspirations to manage a hedge fund — uh — probably not much chance of that now. And Eugene Plotkin is still sitting in the pokey, still not able to make his $3 million bail….
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
We found a couple of more pictures of Monika Vujovic at an event…
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
Crossing Wall Street managed to track down a picture of Monika Vujovic, the 23 year old exotic dancer babe from the insider trading scandal, masterminded by Eugene Plotkin and David Pajcin. It was a group shot which we adjusted. Who needed all of those other people in the picture anyway?
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
According to his lawyer, Martin Schmuckler (could you think of a more appropriate name for a lawyer???), Harvard educated Eugene Plotkin "up until today, he was considered a good catch. Hopefully, when this case is over he will still be considered a good catch."
And it’s not only because he went to Harvard. Plotkin seems to have other talents which may prove useful in his legal case…
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
Naturally no Wall Street story these days is complete if it doesn’t include strippers. According to the complaint filed against the defendants, new era insider traders Eugene Plotkin, David Pajcin and Stanislav Shpigelman, Plotkin and Pajcin had plans for the next phase of their insider trading scheme, which included recruiting exotic dancers at strip clubs to eavesdrop on business meetings to get a leg up (so to speak) on deals….
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
Rumors of Scores’ demise have been vastly overstated. Gentlemen (and perhaps a few ladies) who frequent the club, you may breathe easily. One of the owners of the Scores strip club, Richard Goldring, has pleaded guilty in Manhattan’s state Supreme court to filing false tax returns, but it’s gonna have no impact on the club. So lap dances for everyone on Wall Street!
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