Charlie Ford, a Washington attorney to whom we will have occasion to tip our hats in much more detail later, is the lawyer for a number of clubs. He officiated at their births.
Here’s how most of them really work. Regular patrons, i.e., “members,” are supposed to pay annual dues of about $10, depending on the club, but most regulars pay nothing. Transients, i.e., guests, are charged a door-fee of one or two dollars, depending on the club.
Setups are sold, to those who bring their own liquor, at a nominal price of 35 cents and up. If you haven’t your stuff parked or with you, most clubs will sell it to you under the counter or advise you it can be had from a guy seated in front of the entrance in a car.
These clubs are incorporated as non-profit private enterprises, not required to pay Federal amusement taxes even when they provide floor shows and dancing. Nor need they have ABC liquor licenses, because they are supposed not to be selling.
Many of them operate as follows: The prospective owner or owners and a couple of their friends or employes incorporate as a social or benevolent organization. The real owner then rents and furnishes the premises, which he in turn sublets to the so-called social club at a rent which will approximate all the “take” from membership and door charges. The “club” thereupon turns over the kitchen, the sale of setups and the hat-checking and cigaret stand to the real proprietor, as a concession, in return for a token payment, which in turn goes back to the proprietor with the rent.
In clubs that sell liquor illegally or provide gambling, records of such activities are not kept. The proceeds go directly into the owner’s pocket. If raided or threatened by cleanup drives, the clubs disband. The owner organizes a new club under the same terms and repeats the process.
A new twist is being added since the Fischbach exposé. Some club proprietors are making deals with units of legitimate bodies, such as veteran groups, labor unions, etc., whereby the clubs share some of the profits. One, the Amvets, closed after the Hideaway shooting, its Charter lifted by the national organization.
Bottle-clubs find customers in a variety of ways. Some employes of licensed night clubs and restaurants hand out guest-membership cards to patrons who inquire where they can go after two. These steerers write their names on the cards and draw a kickback for every customer, usually a dollar a head.
Many cab drivers shill for the bottle-clubs, as well as for gin flats. Cab drivers’ pay varies with the size of the party. They sometimes get as much as $5 a haul. They are the chief source of prospective patronage for the colored bottle-clubs. More than 500 after-hour spots in Washington are operated by Negroes or in the Negro district. All cater to blacks and whites. The twenty to thirty white bottle-clubs running are segregated as to Negro musicians and actors. In one club we saw three pretty blonde girls with two Negro men. They were all reefer-smokers, palpably.
Cabbies who hustle for the bottle-clubs not only do so in front of hotels and licensed cabarets and restaurants, but try to pirate customers away from opposition clubs. When they see a prospect waiting for the peephole to open, they tout him away “to a better place, where you won’t have any trouble.” The Hideaway, in Georgetown, depended almost entirely on such maneuvers, as it is far out and off the beaten track.