1,000 signatures reached
To: Jean-Pierre Henri, Steve Rutherford, Queenstown District Licensing Committee
Keep Queenstown Safe: Say NO to Calendar Girls!
This petition is to express the Queenstown community’s strong objection to the proposed establishment of the adult entertainment venue Calendar Girls–or any other venue associated with Calendar Girls founder and operator James Samson. Calendar Girls is notorious for appalling exploitation of their workers and having a negative impact on their surrounding community. Allowing Calendar Girls to operate in our town would harm not just the workers in Queenstown’s currently well-functioning adult entertainment industry, but also the surrounding businesses and Queenstown’s overall reputation. In order to protect Queenstown’s workers, businesses, and overall community, we call for the following:
- We ask the District Licensing Committee (DLC) to deny Calendar Girls–or any venue associated with James Samson–a liquor license
- We ask the owner of the building located at 12B Church Street, Jean-Pierre Henri, to deny Calendar Girls–or any business associated with James Samson–a lease
Why is this important?
Queenstown is the tourism capital of New Zealand. We’re proud of how safe and clean this city is, and the fact that people come from all corners of the world to visit us. Queenstown currently has two established strip clubs, both of which have functional, positive relationships with their workers, and are well-integrated into the Queenstown Community.
This petition is aiming to stand up for what has taken so long to build in Queenstown. We want to be clear that our objection is not to strip clubs generally, or other forms of sex work–the organisers of this petition are current adult entertainers working in Queenstown, who are afraid of what Calendar Girls could do to this city and industry. Adult entertainers are leading the fight against Calendar Girls because the club is synonymous with labour exploitation. The mandated contracts between the club and dancers allow the club to extract hundreds of dollars in fines from independent-contractor dancers, for infractions such as ‘rudeness to management.’(1) These fines are applied unilaterally, and create a culture of fear that enables the labour exploitation found in these clubs. In the adult entertainment industry, dancers and the venue make money by splitting what is paid by a client for a dance provided by the dancer at the venue. While the clubs currently operating in Queenstown take no more than 30% of what a dancer earns, Calendar Girls take up to 60% for some of their services! The largest percentage in the industry.
Calendar Girls recently announced on Facebook that they are planning to open a venue in Queenstown.(2) It is understood that they plan to establish the venue at 12B Church Street, currently occupied by the bar Seek. The establishment of Calendar Girls–or any other adult entertainment venue associated with James Samson–would tarnish Queenstown’s excellent reputation and significantly harm adult entertainers in our city in three main ways:
- Violent assaults have occurred at Calendar Girls, so both locals and tourists could face increased danger.(3)
- Because Calendar Girls takes double the amount of dancers’ profits than the other clubs in Queenstown, the establishment of Calendar Girls will apply downward pressure on the market, incentivising a race to the bottom. Since dancers at Calendar Girls are only allowed to keep 40%-50% of what they earn, many current and former dancers have reported needing to engage in unlicensed sex work–even though Calendar Girls is not a brothel–just to make ends meet. Queenstown has just changed its brothel bylaws so it is able to better control brothels. Allowing a strip club whose policies incentivise illegal work is contrary to these aims.
- Queenstown has spent decades establishing its reputation. If it allows a company whose business model is intrinsically dependent on labour exploitation to open, Queenstown will have confirmed it is a town that permits the exploitation of sex workers, a stain that can cause reputational harm both domestically and internationally.
The stated object of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 is that “the sale, supply, and consumption of alcohol should be undertaken safely and responsibly.” Calendar Girls has been open for more than a decade, providing extensive evidence that it is not operated either safely or responsibly. The DLC should not allow Calendar Girls to drag our city down–we call on them to be proactive and protect Queenstown instead. Similarly, we call on building owner Jean-Pierre Henri to help preserve the exceptional quality of Queenstown’s tourism and nightlife sector by denying Calendar Girls a lease.
References:
- Watch: New Zealand Strippers Allege Exploitation and Wage Theft, 1News, April 2nd 2023, Screenshot of Calendar Fines list, Screenshot of Calendar Fees list.
- Calendar Girls Facebook post, 2 September.
- Man jailed over vicious attack at Christchurch club, Stuff, June 29 2020, Wild night at Auckland Strip club: gunfire claims, five injuries, one arrest, NZ Herald, 25 November 2020
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