He's just a boy

It began as a celebration of a college graduation and it has now headed to court as many things do these days it seems. The center of the debate is a bill for that night of fun which one person claims is far too high.

Joe Salter, 52, of Mary Esther FL is now sueing Club 10, a Florida Panhandle strip club over a $53,000 bill from his son's night of celebrating. Salter feels that the club took advantage of his 24 year-old son Tommy when he was there on August 18 to celebrate his graduation from Georgia Tech.

According to the report from the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office, Tommy told employess that he could only spend $600 that night. Club 10 owner Tim Beal stated that Tommy purchased at least 19 bottles of champagne priced from $150 to $2,000 each that night. Beal added that Tommy signed a receipt for each champagne purchase and even had added his initials next to the itemized charges.

Joe Salter states that only the signature on the first receipt matches his son's. The sheriff's report alleges larceny and credit card theft and Joe had already filed a complaint with American Express to have some of the charges removed from the bill. Beal states though that Tommy was lucid that night and appeared to know what he was doing. As for the complaint with American Express, Beal has already spoken with them about the dispute and they had decided in Club 10's favor.

Salter's son is 24 years old and a college graduate now, so it seems that his dad wanted to celebrate that. I am guessing that he didn't just drop his son off at the club to celebrate by himself, so there probably were friends of Tommy's along to enjoy the evening. If Tommy had only $600 to spend that night, Joe could have easily handed him the cash and that would have ended any chance of alleged overcharges, just the same as walking into a casino with only the money you have to gamble with.

It looks to me that Joe should have made sure that his son possibly had a quick lesson in how to handle a credit card before he went into the strip club, not afterwards through the court system. His son had one heck of a graduation party though, it seems.