Iowa Capital Dispatch
An exotic dancer has filed a class-action lawsuit against the West Des Moines club where she allegedly worked without salary and had to pay the owner for the right to work for tips.
Cierra Turner is suing the company Pretty Women Inc., which owns the gentleman’s club Beach Girls; J.P. Parking, which is alleged to be “effectively the same company” as Pretty Women Inc.; the two companies’ president, James Petry of Warren County; and Beach Girls’ manager Kent O’Connell of Polk County.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleges violations of state and federal minimum-wage laws, unjust enrichment, and unlawful tip sharing.
O’Connell, the club’s manager, declined to comment on the case Monday.
Turner alleges that from January 2019 to June 2020, she worked as an exotic dancer at Beach Girls, located at 6220 Raccoon River Drive in West Des Moines. Turner claims the club misclassified its dancers as “independent contractors” for whom the minimum-wage law does not apply and then refused to provide her with a minimum-wage salary.
Turner claims her only compensation was in the form of tips from the club’s patrons, and that she was required to pay to pay the owners a “house fee” of $40 for every shift she worked. Some of the money she collected in tips had to then be shared with other workers, such as disc jockeys, or routed back to the club’s owner.
“Essentially, defendants took money from plaintiff under the premise...
President Donald Trump made a series of false claims at his Monday press conference about the war with Iran, during which his remarks strayed into other foreign policy issues. Trump also made mult...