Two former bouncers at Sunset Strip “adult entertainment club” in New Windsor claim their boss cheated them out of wages and exposed them to a hostile workplace.
Louis A. Montalbano and Paul Helmeset filed a federal Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit against Sunset Strip and owner Richard Paltridge on April 17 in U.S. District Court in White Plains.
The men are asking for a declaration that the strip club broke state and federal wage laws and an award of alleged unpaid overtime and minimum wages and unspecified damages.
Rochelle Park, New Jersey attorney Evan Ostrer, who represents Paltridge in another case, did not reply to a message asking for his client’s side of the story.
Sunset Strip was established in 1998, according to a state business record, and later incorporated as Dreamgirls Inc.
Its location on Little Britian Road had been used by other strip clubs since the mid-1970s, according to its website, that were seedy and dirty.
The business boasts that it is now the “cleanest and classiest club” in the Hudson Valley. It features all nude entertainment and the “hottest exotic dancers” who, simultaneously, are “more of the ‘girl next door’ type of entertainers.”
Helmeset worked for Sunset Strip from August 2020 to April 2023. Montalbano was there from November 2021 to November 2022, including duties as a disc jockey.
They claim they were not paid for a lot of work and that money was deducted from their paychecks for “fictitious fines.”
Partridge took cash out of the register, for instance, and then deducted money from their paychecks if they had not notified him that the register was short on funds, according to the complaint. If a customer paid with counterfeit money, their salaries were reduced.
Partridge bought two-way radios for the men, the complaint states, then deducted $20 a week from their compensation for several weeks to pay for the equipment.
They claim they had to buy their own equipment, such as protective gloves used to remove dirty heroin needles and trash bags filled with body fluids.
Montalbano says he had to answer emails and text messages and pick up supplies during his free time, without pay.
Helmeset says he was required to pick up dancers at their homes and drive them back at the end of the night, without pay.
Partridge allegedly fostered a hostile workplace by not disciplining a former dancer who groped Montalbano many times and another dancer who bit his ear, the complaint states, and telling him when he worked as a disc jockey to not play music that would attract Black customers.
Both men never received a meal break, overtime pay and minimum wages, according to the complaint, and did not receive state and federally mandated wage statements.
The men are represented by Manhattan attorney Jacob Aronauer.
