Clip joint
A clip joint is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return. Typically, clip joints suggest the possibility of sex, charge excessively high prices for watered-down drinks, and then eject customers when they become unwilling or unable to spend more money.
In the United States, clip joints were widespread during the national prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933. They are generally outlawed in America now. For instance, the New York State Liquor Authority will impose penalties against any licensed premise permitting such conduct.
Clip joints in the United Kingdom
A number of clip joints (or "near beer bars") still operate in London's Soho area, alongside legitimate strip bars.
The scam operated by these clubs is very simple: a customer is shown in from the door, typically by a hostess, and quickly offered a drink or the company of another hostess at their table. If they accept either offer, then as soon as they try and leave the bar, they will be presented with an outrageously high bill - often for several hundred Pound sterling - for the drink, service charges, or hostess company. As with any bar bill, immediate payment is demanded on the threat of criminal charges (or, occasionally, physical violence).
Although strongly disliked, this scam is in a legal grey area if extortion is not involved, since there is no law against charging high prices and it is the customer's own fault if they consume goods or services while unaware of how much they cost. It remains technically a confidence trick since customers order in the false confidence that prices will be around the standard market levels.
See also
External links
- National Prohibition of Alcohol in the U.S.
- Soho clip joints
- Guardian story: Soho clip joints to be forced out of business by police, dated February 29, 2004, accessed September 16, 2006.
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