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I don't have a problems with strip clubs, topless dancers, or prostitutes. I do have a problem with government bureaucrats who piss away our tax dollars at strip clubs.
And of course this is brings up the old "Do as I say, not as I do" mantra the government nannies are always throwing at us. They want to shut down the strip joints us serfs go to, but they don't have a problem with spending thousands of our tax dollars for themselves to socialize with the nude women at these clubs. Port official blows $4,500 at strip club Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists Published 12:10 a.m., Monday, October 15, 2012 A high-ranking Port of Oakland official is in hot water for throwing down $4,500 in public funds for a party at a Houston strip club. Port commissioners met in an emergency closed session late Friday to discuss the case involving Maritime Director James Kwon and his $4,537 bill for a "drink and dinner reception" at Treasures, an upscale gentlemen's club where Kwon entertained about a dozen shipping industry executives during a 2008 conference in Houston. Not that it would have been immediately apparent to port officials that the bill was for a strip club. The receipt Kwon submitted for the reception says it was held at D. Houston Inc. - the name of the strip club's parent company. "Port commissioners take this matter very seriously," board President Gilda Gonzales said in a statement after their meeting. It doesn't help that Treasures has been accused of being the site of prostitution, drug dealing, weapons crimes and sexual assaults dating at least to 2008. Kwon's strip-club spending spree didn't come to port officials' attention until just recently. The timing is especially terrible for the port, which is in the midst of a protracted labor fight with maintenance and other workers over terms of a new contract. Now, officials are scrambling to get a handle on the strip-club visit and to determine whether it was part of a broader pattern by Kwon of misuse of public money. Kwon, maritime operations director since 2007, wasn't available for comment - he's in China attending another port conference. "Over the last several years we have been taking steps to address Port expenditures, including developing policies," Gonzales said in her statement, adding that commissioners are conducting "further investigations to ensure expenditures like this don't occur again." While they're at it, port commissioners might want to take a closer look at some of their own bills. Our review of the past two years of credit card expenses for the commissioners and their support staff shows tens of thousands of dollars in travel and other expenses - including one instance in which a couple of commissioners flew first class. SNIP |