Titus proposes taxing adult clubs to aid OBGYNs

Tuesday, March 11, 2003 | 11:22 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas today proposed a new tax on nude and topless dancing clubs to help pay medical malpractice insurance premiums for obstetricians and gynecologists.

"It's called women helping women," said Titus after she presented her plan to the Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor that is considering bills to reform the insurance industry that provides medical malpractice coverage.

The dancers in these clubs are independent contractors, said Titus. These businesses don't pay the $100 a year tax per employee, they don't pay unemployment premiums and they don't cover the dancers' injuries on the job.

"They don't make any contribution to the state," said Titus.

She said her tax would be assessed on the size of the topless club. Some of them are huge, she said, referring to the 66,000-square-foot Sapphire Club.

She said she wants to raise about $3 million to set up a fund to subsidize rising medical malpractice premiums for doctors of obstetrics and gynecology.

The amount of the assessment per square-foot is not computed yet. But she said this would be a temporary tax until the reforms being made to the medical malpractice law take effect in about five years.

The state insurance commissioner would administer the fund. Those doctors without any malpractice claims against them would get the biggest subsidy. Then those who are being sued would receive a smaller amount or no money from the fund.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's tax plan includes a 7.2 percent entertainment tax that would be levied against the admission charge of those entering these clubs. The entertainment tax would also apply to a number of other businesses.

Titus said she had considered imposing a surcharge on the admission fee of these clubs. But she said these businesses would probably eliminate the entry fee and raise the price of drinks.

The assessment plan for nude and topless clubs would be an amendment to her medical malpractice bill that would limit increases in insurance premiums and prohibit confidentiality in certain malpractice settlement agreements.

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