Topless Dance Club May Unionize : Labor: About 125 employees, including bartenders and bouncers, will vote Friday. Grievances include Pacer’s management taking a share of the tips.

Pacer’s, one of this city’s oldest and best-known topless clubs, is “just a kiss away”--or so the advertising slogan goes. But if the women who perform on the club’s “two live stages” have their way, a labor union is also just a vote away.

About 100 topless dancers at Pacer’s have asked to be represented by a union, citing unfair labor practices by the club’s management. Although the dancers’ unionizing efforts have sparked one-liners by late night talk show hosts Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall, the women who work at Pacer’s say their organizing drive is no laughing matter.

Led by a woman with the stage name Lady Dy, the club’s 125 employees, including bouncers, disc jockeys and bartenders, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for recognition as members of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 30.

The NLRB has sanctioned an election for Friday. If more than half the employees vote in favor of the union, Pacer’s will become California’s first nude or topless club to unionize, said Jef Eatchel, secretary-treasurer of Local 30.

Saying they feared retribution by the club’s management if they spoke out by name, some male and female club employees agreed to talk to a reporter on the condition that they remain anonymous. Lady Dy, who wanted to be identified only by her first name, Dianne, emerged as the employees’ spokeswoman.

The club’s employees listed some of the grievances that led them to go to a labor union. According to Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union documents and interviews, they include:

* Dancers earn most of their income in tips but are also paid the minimum wage of $4.25 per hour. However, dancers are then required to turn around and pay Pacer’s $5 for each hour they work.

* Club rules require dancers to distribute 30% of their tip money to bartenders, bouncers and disc jockeys, who are then required to give management 40% of the money they receive from dancers.

* Dancers are required to buy items for their uniforms from the club at inflated prices. Pacer’s buys garters for less than a dollar and sells them to dancers for $3.50 apiece. Dancers are also required to buy nylon stockings from the club, which sells them at $10.50 per pair.

* Management charged dancers a $5 per night locker fee, but ended that practice when the San Diego labor commissioner ruled that the fee was illegal.

* Dancers also complain of sexual harassment, safety violations and lack of job security and health benefits.

Club owner David C. Ford and Pacer’s general manager Russell K. Harmon did not respond to requests for an interview.

Located in the Midway district amid a jumble of mini-malls, restaurants and bars, Pacer’s and other nearby establishments attract the business of thousands of sailors and Marines from military bases.

“On a good night, a dancer can (net) between $100 and $200 in tips. But there have also been nights when, after I tip the others and pay the club, I go home with $15 to show for eight hours work,” Dianne said.

Dianne, who is married, has been dancing for 11 years and has a 13-year-old daughter. When she is not performing, she works “at a respectable job,” she said.

Many dancers are college students. A former Pacer’s dancer recently graduated from the University of San Diego Law School and now works for a major law firm downtown.

Although other club owners are worried about the union drive at Pacer’s, Fred Levy, owner of the Pure Platinum clubs, dismissed the organizing effort as “a big joke.”

“I’m as worried about that as I am about Russia attacking. If it does succeed, the only thing it’s gonna do is force clubs to hire non-union independent contractors from talent agencies. If they win, all they’ll do is lose their jobs,” Levy said.