Anchorage strip club may have failed to pay dancers, state says

The state is investigating claims that an Anchorage strip club is not paying its dancers, a group of 30 or more individuals, minimum wage and overtime as required by law. Meanwhile, the city is protesting the club’s request to renew its liquor license pending the outcome of the Labor Department review.

One former dancer said she never got a paycheck and had to pay Fantasies a fee to strip.

“This was my first time being a dancer. I had no idea about paychecks,” said Myounghee Harter.

“If I’m there at 8 o’clock on Sunday through Tuesday, I pay $35. On Wednesday, it would be $45 and on Thursday, it would be $55. On Friday or Saturday, if I start at 9 o’clock, I would pay $75,” said Harter.

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is handling the probe of Fantasies on 5th, a strip club started by two sisters, Kathy and Carol Hartman, in 1998. Its current owner of record is Travis Gravelle, Kathy Hartman’s son, did not return a phone call from KTUU. The Hartmans also could not be reached on Friday.

A state Labor Standards Division staffer told the club last fall that the agency would investigate Fantasies' wage practices from December 2013 through November 2015. Investigators met with Gravelle as well as general manager Eugene Greave on Nov. 30, 2015.

“During the initial conference, Travis Gravelle could not answer any questions about the business including how taxes were filed,” wrote investigator Donna Nass in an affidavit.

Asked if Fantasies filed its taxes separately as a corporation or Gravelle filed the club’s taxes as part of his personal return, Gravelle told investigators, “I have no idea.”

Greaves told Nass in a phone call that Gravelle was an owner in name only and that he has “no lick of business sense.” Greaves said he has a manager who is a dancer running the place and that he flies in from California on occasion to check on things.

The Department of Labor maintains that Fantasies is stiffing some 30 or more dancers from wages they are owed. Fantasies says the dancers are “not employees but tenants that lease space,” according to a letter Greave sent Wage and Hour on Dec. 1, 2015

“Please understand that our dancers are neither employees nor outside contractors. The dancers are tenant/entertainers, and sign a lease agreement to this effect,” Greave wrote. “We feel that there is no jurisdiction with the Labor Department on this relationship.”

Wage and Hour supervisor Joe Dunham says the law is on the dancers’ side.

Dunham cited a 1987 Alaska Supreme Court decision and a 2012 Alaska District Court case that recognized dancers as employees entitled to minimum wage under the Alaska Wage and Hour Act and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

“These dancers are entitled by law to at least minimum wage and overtime for all hours worked,” Dunham said.

Minimum wage is $9.75 an hour in Alaska.

Fantasies’ owners should know the law, according to the agency. Kathy Hartman was specifically named as a defendant in the 2012 federal court case. The judge in that case ordered Hartman to pay back wages to one of the plaintiffs.

The current investigation stems from recent complaints from dancers, Dunham said. But it’s not the first time Dunham’s staff have handled complaints about Fantasies. After the 2012 federal court decision, Wage and Hour received five wage claims from Fantasies’ workers. Four were deemed valid and the strip club paid the claims, Dunham said.

“It tells me they don’t have respect for their workers,” said Harter.

She and other dancers testified at a hearing last week of the Alcohol & Marijuana Control Board where objections were heard over the renewal of Fantasies’ liquor license. Besides the dancers, the Labor Department and the Anchorage Assembly are asking that the license not be renewed, at least until the investigation is complete.

Harter said she danced at Fantasies for three years starting in 2013. At first she wasn’t aware she should be paid minimum wage.

“When I found out, it didn’t feel fair,” she said.

Harter complained to a manager but was told the club was not obliged to comply with Alaska’s minimum wage law.

“She said, ‘You’re an independent contractor’” Harter said.

That’s clearly not the case, according to Dunham. The Alaska Supreme court laid out six criteria that define who constitutes an employee.

Three of them apply in the Fantasies’ case, he said.

They include whether or not the employer has the right to control the worker’s schedules; whether or not the relationship between the employer and employee is for all practical purposes permanent; and whether or not the service rendered by the employee is an integral part of the employer’s business, Dunham said.

“This is a dancing establishment and these are dancers. That’s an integral part of your business,” he said.

The city’s protest of the club’s liquor license renewal is scheduled for discussion at the Anchorage Assembly’s June 21 regular session.

Assembly member Patrick Flynn said the city would not have any objection to renewing Fantasies’ liquor license as long as Department of Labor’s concerns are addressed.

Dunham would not say when the wage investigation is expected to be complete.

KTUU Senior Digital Reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at

, 907-762-9242, or @pauladobbyn