Wonderful Journalism
The Birmingham News is a bastion of Alabama journalism
Basically, a stripper has sued the club she worked at because she was forced to drink alcoholic drinks bought for her while on the job, and then left her job drunk, crashed her car and injured herself.
The whole article is ridiculous, and of course the title has "stripper" in it. Ugh.
If you really want to have an aneurysm, read the comments. A whole lot of, "stupid slut deserved it".
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Hmm. I gotta say, I think she is ultimately responsible for drunk driving. (Is there any sort of criminal case against her?)
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the only reason she might have a leg to stand on is that the handbook for her job specifically says the club will give dancers a breathalyzer test before giving them back their car keys after a shift. That sounds like they are taking responsibility for making sure dancers are ok to drive, so if they didn't actually follow through on that they might be somewhat at fault.
But really, I think every adult needs to know when they are too drunk to drive, even if they drank as part of a work event.
If she was forced to drink as part of her job, how was she supposed to get home? Granted, I'm sure one of her customers would have been glad to drive her home for a little extra something, but I don't think even the most monstrous fluff feminists of my feverish imagination would consider that empowering.
I agree with voluptuouspanic. If the club is going to endanger their employees by making them consume alcohol on the job, they at least should make arrangements for them to get to and from the job site safely.
If she knew she'd have to drink every night as part of her job, she should have also known that part of the cost of getting ready to work there would be making sure she had another way home, like a cab. If she had complained to some sort of business board that the club needed to provide safe transportation home for their drunk dancers, I'd be completely on her side. But she decided to drive home drunk rather than wait to sober up or take a cab.
The club may have some liability here since it sounds like they said they would check on people's ability to drive home, and didn't. Hopefully this lawsuit will result in them having to have cabs on hand for the dancers, or something.
But I still think the ultimate responsibility is hers. Saying they made her do it is like saying she was just following orders. If I take a job where my boss tells me to fire a gun into the woods where people might be walking, and I do it, is it somehow not my fault when someone gets hit? Now, she's lucky it sounds like she only injured herself and didn't end up killing someone else with her drunk driving. But she's an adult and she should know that when you drive drunk you take a big chance with your life and the lives of others.
Good for her for standing up against a club. If the club is requiring her to drink, then not making arrangements for her to get home safely, it's really their problem.
Many, many policies that management make in strip clubs are illegal.