At the beginning of March, we published a labor rights story on The Strippers’ Bill of Rights moving through the Washington legislative session and the dancers from the group Strippers Are Workers (SAW) who were fighting for the bill.
Some of the labor protections the bill sought to secure included capping exorbitant stage fees, — the rent dancers had to pay to strip club owners in order to perform — increasing sexual harassment and sex trafficking trainings for all club employees, putting an end to archaic lewd conduct rules that were being enforced in a discriminatory way against queer people, and maybe most controversially, ending the state’s prohibition on alcohol in strip clubs.
Though the bill passed its final legislative hurdle, the Senate concurrence vote, on March 5 and was signed by both the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House by March 7, it sat on Governor Jay Inslee’s desk for two and a half weeks with no signature and no comment from Inslee’s office, leaving SAW organizers nervous that he planned to veto sections or the entirety of the bill.
Those fears grew when the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (WAPA) sent a letter to Inslee asking that he veto section three of the bill, which prohibited any city with a population of more than 650,000 or a county with a population of more than 2 million from collecting payment from customers or regulating a dancer’s distance from customers — though customers would still be banned from physical contact with dancers.
As written, this specific section of the bill only impacts Seattle and King County. WAPA left an Instagram comment on one of SAW’s posts claiming that their opposition to this section was solely because they were opposed to “creating a different set of guidelines” across the state.
However, their letter to Inslee told a different story, stating that they needed to regulate distance between adult entertainers and patrons in order to prevent sex-trafficking.
“We feel that section 3’s preemption language, combined with the possibility of alcohol, increases the likelihood of criminal activity,” wrote Russell Brown, the executive director of WAPA. “The effect of the preemption in section 3 will apply to the City of Seattle and King County but will also be felt throughout Washington. It is because of these concerns, and its statewide impact, we ask that you veto section 3.”
After WAPA’s opposition to section 3 became widely known, organizers from SAW jumped into action, running a campaign to send emails urging Inslee to sign the bill. As of March 24, SAW said folks had sent 1800 emails in support of the bill they fought so hard for, and on March 25, they got their victory.
Nearly 20 strippers, politicians and organizational supporters, including Madison Zack-Wu and Ashe Ryder — the Spokane-based stripper we interviewed for our original story — stood behind Inslee as he signed the bill into law.
“We are all just so happy, grateful, and relieved that the policy we created was signed into law. The policy is everything we hoped for,” Zack-Wu told RANGE. “Dancers are excited to see the implementation of the law, but also think that change has already happened in hearts and minds, and that people care about and understand strippers a little bit more.”
Ryder, who coordinated most of the advocacy for the bill on the east side of the state, was equally proud of the results.
“I’m really excited to see it passed, especially with no vetoes. There was so much hard work that we put into this bill and to see it on Governor Inslee’s desk was a moment full of pride and joy,” Ryder wrote in a text to RANGE. “It is just one step to creating a more safe, equitable, and lucrative industry and I am looking forward to the projects we will be tackling next. I am fortunate to work and organize with such driven folks.”
