What is it with local traffic-ticket lawyers and their misadventures at strip clubs? In April, Ticket Clinic founder Mark S. Gold sued Goldrush strip club, claiming the establishment got him drunk and made him run up a $18,930 tab. Now the Ticket Cricket's Bret Lusskin is suing Tootsie's Cabaret because he claims the club lured him in with the promise of a free Rolex watch, but all he got was annoying text-message promotions in return.
The night of November 25, 2009, Lusskin claims, he paid $20 for VIP entrance to Tootsie's Cabaret in Miami Gardens. He was apparently lured there that evening with promises of a Rolex giveaway. Tootsie's was running a promotion: Provide your cell phone number and be present at the club that particular night, and you might win the valuable watch. ("Hey, man, nice watch. Where'd you get it? Family heirloom?" "Nah, bro, I won it at a strip club.")
Lusskin didn't win that night and in the lawsuit describes the giveaway as "a marketing ruse by Defendant in order to obtain MR. LUSSKIN'S and the other participants' cell phone numbers in order that Defendant or its agents could send commercial text messages to Plaintiff and the other participants over and over again."
Lusskin did, however, get something in return for entering: spam in the form of more than 200 text messages advertising Tootsie's.
The lawyer claims that receiving the messages caused him and other consumers "actual harm" because the texts are annoying and some phone companies charge you for receiving them. Lusskin further claims the scheme is illegal because patrons did not know they were signing up for the text messages, and that it violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
So now Lusskin has filed a class-action lawsuit against Tootsie's seeking up to $2,000 in damages for each text message, court costs, and an injunction against Tootsie's owner, Rick's Cabaret, to stop this form of marketing.
You can read the full lawsuit at South Florida Lawyers.
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