TACOMA, Wash. — There is one strip club in Pierce County, Washington. Just one. And yet that one business — Dreamgirls at Fox’s, in a low-slung building tucked away next to gas stations and check-cashing businesses — is one of the most talked-about places in a county that houses the state’s third-largest city, an active volcano and more than 800,000 people. The Dreamgirls exotic dancers have been in the headlines in the state for over a month, since a cowboy-hat-wearing civil engineer named David Van Vleet filed a public records request to see the business licenses of the women who work there. The records contain their legal names, among other details such as their dates of birth, stage names and physical descriptions. Van Vleet, a Christian, looked into television cameras and told reporters he simply wanted their names to pray for them. “I’m not somebody that’s going to harm the women,” he told KIRO-TV.

But their safety was exactly what concerned exotic dancers across Washington as the news spread. For Tracy, a dancer in Seattle, just north of Tacoma, who asked that her real name be withheld, the incident immediately reminded her of the licensing information she had to file with the local police department to legally dance at the club. “They take our fingerprints. Ask about any scars or identifying marks,” she said. “So if I get murdered, they can identify my body.” It’s not irrational thinking. Washington serial killers Gary Ridgway and Robert Yates famously used the thick, lush state forests of Pierce County as dumping grounds for the bodies of sex workers from the 1970s to 1990s. Though a judge issued a preliminary injunction that prevents Van Vleet from getting the Dreamgirls dancers’ licenses, it doesn’t completely remove the threat that their information could be released. The case will be revisited in mid-December. “The fact of the matter is anybody who has your name can probably find out a lot about you,” said Gilbert Levy, attorney for the dancers. It’s why the women use stage names. “They have private lives,” he said. “Many of them are parents. Many of them dance because they can make a living and they don’t necessarily want their mom to know. A lot of them have straight jobs.” Aside from privacy concerns, the Pierce County case opens up First Amendment and open records debates and questions of whether dancers should be considered independent contractors or employees. And the big question: Why do they need licenses at all? In most Washington cities, licenses are required to be an adult entertainer to ensure they are 18 or older and legal residents. But licensing is “not very common” elsewhere in the United States, according to Angelina Spencer, president of the Association of Club Executives (ACE). Spencer said that in the few instances when club workers are required to be licensed, it’s up to individual cities to regulate. She points to Ft. Myers, Florida, and Asheville and Greensboro, North Carolina, as some of the only cities that require licenses for dancers. “Anyone working in an adult club, regardless of job title, in Ft. Myers must obtain a license after going through a background check,” she said.

‘If I want to do legal work in a club, I have to put my information on record. Or if I want to do illegal or gray-area sex work, I will not have my information on public record.’ Theresa Seattle exotic dancer