Topless joint can't give money
away
4 S.F. nonprofits refuse $4,330
donation from a North Beach strip
club
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Mike Gasperec just learned the hard way that
supposedly hang-up-free San Francisco and the
Bible Belt have one thing in common: They're tough
places to give away a strip club's money.
Four nonprofit organizations representing San
Francisco's homeless, poor and cancer-stricken
turned down a $4,330 gift from Gasperec's
Penthouse Grille and Broadway Showgirls Cabaret
topless club in North Beach over the past several
weeks, saying they have reputations to protect.
Gasperec, the club's general manager, was surprised
how hard it is to find someone to take the proceeds
from a $195-per-person golf tournament the club had
sponsored -- particularly in a town where the
S&M-themed Folsom Street Fair is nearly a civic
holiday.
"I don't know what's wrong. I have a good life, and
we're just trying to give a little something back," said
Gasperec, a husband and father of a young daughter.
He felt the same charitable rejection when he worked
at strip clubs in South Carolina and Florida. "Our
money is green."
It wasn't the color of the cash that spooked
organizations, it was the specter of flesh. Even
though California's budget deficits and shrinking
foundation portfolios are forcing nonprofits to
scrounge harder for cash, some preferred to refuse
the free money and avoid any potential hassle.
"Unfortunately, we had to decline," said Julie Homan
of the Breast Cancer Fund. "They were really nice
and everything, but we didn't want to be associated
with a gentlemen's club. We have 70,000 members,
and we didn't want to offend anyone."
Raphael House, which provides shelter and after-care
for homeless families, declined because, as a
"clean-and-sober facility," it didn't want its name
associated with an event where alcohol was served.
"It was a very hard choice," said Development
Director Jo-Ellen Peterson. "But we have a really
good reputation in San Francisco, so we have to be
very careful."
The Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp.,
which owns and manages 21 buildings in one of the
city's most downtrodden neighborhoods, also said
no, thanks.
'A reputation to keep up'
The group declined "because of the nature of the
(gentlemen's club) business," spokesman Terry
Sellards said. "Some people had a problem with that,
because they feel that (the adult entertainment)
business exploits women.
"We've got a reputation to keep up," Sellards said.
The Hamilton Family Center, which provides
emergency services and shelter to 350 homeless
families every night in San Francisco, turned down
the cash because "it didn't quite mix well with what
we do here," said Executive Director Salvador
Menjivar. "We have a lot of children here."
Even the Novato golf club that originally agreed to
host the tournament backed out. The strip club finally
held the fund-raiser Oct. 12 at an Oakland public golf
course.
Fielding all that rejection "makes you feel like a
*******," said Joe Carouba, president of BSC
Management, which runs 12 strip clubs in San
Francisco, including Broadway Showgirls.
Many dancers are mothers
About 40 percent of the 700 dancers at BSC clubs
are mothers, and many of those mothers are raising
families on their own, Carouba said. So he and
Gasperec said they wanted to contribute to an
organization that helps women and children in need.
But being spurned by charities, it turns out, is
common in the stripping business.
From a Miami cancer center that refused to take
proceeds from a stripper- led car wash in 1997, to a
Wisconsin children's theater refusing cash from the
fully clothed Hooters chain last year, history is full of
organizations that have left money on the table.
Last week, three Southern California exotic-dance
clubs were told that the Red Cross wouldn't accept
their $5,484 pledge for victims of last month's
wildfires. The Salvation Army took it instead.
And strip-club officials say the San Francisco
firefighters' annual toy drive was initially a bit leery
about publicly acknowledging that the city's
least-clothed dancers donated $10,000 to its
campaign last year -- and have done so for at least
five years.
The donations come from lap dances in the clubs,
where performers donate money every holiday
season to the 54-year-old toy drive. Once or twice a
night,
the DJ announces that some of the proceeds from
the next dance will go toward a good cause and that
patrons should dig into their pockets.
"The nice thing about our program is, the money
comes in from all kinds of sources," said Dennis
Kruger, a board member for the firefighters' toy drive.
"Then we buy the toys and tell the kids it's from
Santa.
"Regardless of what some people think of what
people do for a living, the important thing is that all
this money goes for the kids," Kruger said.
The upside of stripper rejection is that when one
organization declines a gentlemen's club offer, the
door of opportunity offers for others to claim the loot.
The big winner in this tale is Ruth Dewson, owner of
a Fillmore Street hat store where San Francisco
Mayor Willie Brown shops. Not only did Dewson
accept the Broadway Showgirls check for her
charitable foundation for Western Addition girls,
Dewson put the club's oversize check in her store
window.
"When they told me that people wouldn't accept the
money, I couldn't believe it," Dewson said. "I don't
care what they do. They're not going to be dancing
naked in front of my store. They're just trying to do
something nice."
E-mail Joe Garofoli at
jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.
Link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/22/MNGV838Q011.DTL&type=news
