Former baristas claim boss told them to wear pasties

Published 3:23 pm Friday, July 30, 2010

EVERETT — Prostitution charges against several women who worked at Grab-n-Go bikini espresso stands made national news last week, but police descriptions of what was going on at the stands weren’t a surprise to at least some former baristas.

Four women said problems at the stands included being pushed to wear pasties, to act in a sexually provocative manner to earn tips, and getting paychecks, which bounced, from an entirely different business. Drug use among some employees was also a problem, they said.

“I thought it was just a job,” said Kelsey McShane, one of the former baristas. “I was pretty naive.”

Grab-n-Go owner Bill Wheeler said the accusations by police, and former baristas, aren’t true. Baristas who engage in illegal behavior such as drug use or prostitution are fired immediately, he said.

“That’s nothing but a lie,” he said Wednesday. “I would terminate employees that engage in any type of behavior like that.”

Five women at an Everett Grab-n-Go were charged last week for multiple counts of prostitution and violating the city’s adult entertainment ordinance after a two-month undercover police investigation. Two other women who worked at a Grab-n-Go stand off Highway 99 just south of Everett were charged with indecent exposure in early September.

No sexual intercourse was taking place at the Everett stand, but other actions taking place there, such as licking whipped cream off each other’s private parts, fall under the city’s definition of prostitution. Some acts cost customers as much as $80.

The women’s accusations took him by surprise because “I’m really strict,” he said. “I’ve terminated a lot of girls who haven’t followed our procedures.” He said he has even sent girls home and told them to put on more clothing.

McShane said she was hired in January at age 17. The Cascade High School senior lives on her own and needed a job. She knew she’d be selling coffee wearing a bikini top — that part didn’t bother her.

What she didn’t expect is an ultimatum a month into the job from her employer that she must wear pasties, she said, and the attention from customers that followed.

Fed up with “people trying to touch me,” McShane said she quit at the beginning of the summer. She said she also grew concerned about her paychecks, which came not from Grab-n-Go but from “Nationwide Investigative Services, Inc.,” a business with an Everett address that isn’t listed as licensed by the state or city.

Other former Grab-n-Go baristas reported similar experiences.

They asked that their names not be published because they fear retaliation and are embarrassed. None was accused of wrongdoing by the police.

A 22-year-old single mother said she thought she would just have to wear a bikini top. After a week, she said she was told “if you don’t put pasties on, you’re fired. The rules have changed.”

Another woman, a former exotic dancer, said she experienced similar problems with paychecks bouncing. She said the behavior she saw from some of her former co-workers was worse than at the strip club.

Wheeler said that some of his employees work for both businesses, so may be paid from his tenant-screening business. He said the business is licensed, and Grab-n-Go baristas receive their paychecks on time.

McShane said she wasn’t asked for identification when she was hired and she never filled out W-2 forms or other paperwork. She said $300 was taken out of her paychecks no matter how much she earned during a pay period.

Wheeler said the employees fill out all the paperwork for the required deductions and he pays his taxes.

Grab-n-Go manager Michelle Enselman said she has worked for Wheeler for three years. She’s said her employer has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal behavior and women have been fired for drug use.

Enselman handles most of the hiring and firing and she said all employees have to fill out a W-2 form and show identification. She also said the business has a strict dress code. Employees can choose to wear bikini bottoms or boy shorts and a bikini top or bra.

Lingerie is also OK as long as it isn’t sheer. G-strings and thongs aren’t permitted, she said.

“All of these rumors flying around are ridiculous,” she said. “Any girls caught doing inappropriate things are doing it on their own. Bill hasn’t told them to do it.”

The former baristas said they felt they were pushed to do things they didn’t want to do.

A 19-year-old college student, from the Everett area, said the job became something that she now regrets and is embarrassed to talk about: performing sexually provocative acts for tips.

During the nine months she worked at the stand, she said she was encouraged by her boss to wear less and do more for tips.

“Every time I had to do something, I felt cheap,” she said. “It felt easier and easier the longer I did it, and I felt less and less myself.”

She has shared with police investigators about her time working in Grab-n-Go stands near Mill Creek and south of Everett.

In the beginning, she just served coffee wearing nothing more risque than a swimsuit top. Her customers were mainly men but there were women and occasionally parents with carloads of kids too. For the most part, her customers treated her well.

“There was nothing gross, nothing too bad,” she said. “I’d get, ‘You’re hot, you’re cute, you’re beautiful,’ but never anything vulgar — at the beginning.”

About a month into the job, things changed. The woman she worked with came to work one day with pasties and told the teenager they needed to make more money. She had brought the teen a pair, too.

Then 18, she put on the pasties and spent the day feeling embarrassed, trying to cross her arms across her nearly bare breasts while serving coffee.

In the following months she said she was encouraged by her employer and fellow employees to don pasties more frequently. Then one day she said Wheeler took her aside and told her she was expected to wear them daily.

Wheeler said that never happened, and that baristas can choose what to wear.

The money at the coffee stand was good, the woman said, and she could make as much as $400 a shift just in tips. Baristas willing to do more outrageous things for customers could earn more than $800 a day, she said.

The women and parents with kids stopped coming. Her tips increased but so, too, did the expectations of her male customers.

Men would pull up, flash a folded bill and ask what she would do for it. She said it was normal for baristas to shake breasts and bottoms for bigger tips, dance or do certain things, such as perform a “whipped cream dream”: spraying whipped cream on another barista’s breasts and licking it off.

One customer asked if he could put his hands down her panties. Another tried to crawl through the coffee stand window and slap her bottom.

“Oh, my God, they were disgusting,” she said.

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.