Texas tax is about to raise the cost of getting a lap dance

DALLAS - Texas is about to make it more expensive to watch a little bump and grind.

In what some have dubbed the "pole tax," the Lone Star State will require its 150 or so strip clubs to collect a $5-per-customer levy, with most of the proceeds going to help rape victims. The tax goes into effect New Year's Day.

Club owners and some of their customers say the money is going to a noble cause, but they argue that the tax infringes on their First Amendment right to freedom of expression, that it will drive some bars out of business, and that it unfairly links their industry to sex crimes.

"This is going to kill some of the smaller clubs," said Dawn Rizos, who with her husband runs the Lodge, a Hemingway-inspired place that is packed after Dallas Cowboys games at nearby Texas Stadium.

Strip clubs occupy a mythic place in Texas lore as places where young women can work their way through college, and small-town girls with dreams of Hollywood stardom get their start on the lowest rung of show biz. The late Anna Nicole Smith got her start this way.

The strip clubs are suing to block the tax, which state officials estimate will raise more than $40 million a year, based on liquor-sales figures. If accurate, the estimate suggests at least eight million people a year go to Texas strip clubs to get a lap dance or watch women pole-dance in a G-string.

Supporters of the stripper tax say they are not out to close the clubs - that would just mean less money for victims of sexual assault.

"This is an industry that largely employs women, and this gives them an opportunity to raise funds for a crime that affects women," said State Rep. Ellen Cohen, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill, approved by the legislature in May.