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Houston’s Strip Clubs Hit by New ‘Pole Tax’
The city of Houston is turning to an unusual source to help fund rape investigations: strip clubs.
The City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that requires strip clubs to pay a $5-per-visitor fee to help pay for the analysis of biological evidence collected from rape victims in hopes of identifying their attackers.
Cash-strapped Houston is looking to an unusual source to finance rape investigations: strip clubs. The city council voted Wednesday to require strip clubs to pay $5 per visitor to help analyze biological evidence from rape victims. Nathan Koppel has details on The News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
Police in Houston, and in many other parts of the U.S., lack the money to promptly analyze evidence such as hair particles and blood specimens, gathered by investigators in packets known as rape kits. Houston estimates it has 6,000 rape kits that have yet to be scrutinized by crime laboratories.
Supporters of the ordinance, which was supported by Mayor Annise Parker and approved on a 14-1 vote, contend that strip clubs should shoulder some of the costs of rape investigations because the establishments can cultivate unhealthy attitudes toward women that can lead to sexual assaults.
“There are negative secondary effects associated with adult-entertainment establishments,” said Ellen Cohen, the council member who championed the ordinance, which could generate up to $3 million in annual revenue.
The fee would also apply to clubs that stage occasional adult entertainment, such as “a wet T-shirt contest or naked sushi contest,” according to the ordinance, which states all the revenue is to go toward processing rape kits.
There are an estimated 30 clubs subject to the tax, according to Ms. Cohen’s chief of staff.
Critics strongly question attempts to tie strip clubs to violence against women, calling the fee unfair. “There is no known correlation between people going to nice, high-end gentlemen’s clubs and rape,” said Albert Van Huff, a Houston lawyer who represents local strip clubs.
cracker
June 28th, 2012
Isn’t this the spot we were in when we split from England?
Frosteetoes
June 28th, 2012
Wouldn’t that be called a Cover Charge? Do clubs still do that?
Jinks
June 29th, 2012
I guess only the government can f#ck someone at a titty bar. Last time I tried I got kicked out!
old_oaks
June 29th, 2012
$5 is pittance.
Ever ask a stripper to return a $100 bill you mistook for a single?
Unneutral
June 29th, 2012
Maybe if the government didn’t spend so damn much money on the entitlement programs they could afford a little more money on public safty, which is suppose to be their primary job in the first place.
Stranded in Sonoma
June 29th, 2012
Then stop the funding for giving clean needles to junkies.
Buck Ofama
June 29th, 2012
You didn’t think they were going to “put a tax” on the homosexual and lesbian bars, did you?
Oh, did I mention that the Mayor of Houston is a lesbian?
IronyCurtain
June 29th, 2012
Start executing the rapists and there will be less rape kits to examine in the first place.
persecutor
June 29th, 2012
You took the words right out of my mouth, Buck.
Troy
June 29th, 2012
When I lived in Houston many years ago the city council were constantly messing with the titty bars.
They try and kill those golden geese all the time.
Anna Nicole Simpson used to strip at The Gold Cup down there. Then she met a 90 year old billionaire and it was love at first sight.
scr_north
June 29th, 2012
Anybody want to bet that soon after this tax goes into play the money will suddenly go into general revenue and the time to process a rape kit will fall back to what it is now? Governments do this all the time. They use a hot-button issue to raise taxs then when the spotlight is off the new tax money disappears into a blackhole of social welfare spending or union pensions or subsidized art galleries or whatever. Isn’t Houston the area that retard Sheila Jackson-Lee represents? Explains a lot.