“WAITRESS” TRAP

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 3

“WAITRESS” TRAP

(N.Z.PA. itaff correspondent)

LONDON, May 8.

Interpol and British detectives are involved in inquiries concerning at least one London employment agency and a German organisation hiring girls through newspaper advertisements to act as waitresses in bars and a discotheque at a German town.

A New Zealand girl and two Australian girls, who answered an advertisement and spent their savings travelling to the town, found on arrival that they were not wanted as waitresses but hostesses, expected by the clientele to be free with their favours.

Twenty-one year old Isabel MacPherson, of Royal Oak, Auckland, Beverley Crimson. 24. of Sutherland, Sydney, and Ruth Ceeney, 26, of Botany Bay, Sydney, fled the town after one night’s experience of hostessing In the

bars of Kaiserslauten, west of Mannheim.

They, and it appears about 40 other girls, were lured to the town by advertisements in London newspaper* offering jobs at a salary of about $340 a month.

Replies to the advertisements brought the information that some girls would be required to perform ’’gogo” type dancing and serve drinks at a discotheque, while others. Including the New Zealander and two Australians, were told they would serve drinks and food. The three were contacted by a German and required to sign a form of typewritten contract This stated that their work would be waitresstag and that they would be employed for six months, free accommodation being provided for the first four weeks. "The advertisement was for barmaids and waitresses but what they want are hostesses,” Miss Crimson said. “We found out from other girls there that you don’t get paid anything but are expected to live on what you can get for making visitors buy you a soft drink.”

She said that the venture had cost them more than $6O each in fares and meals. “It doesn't look as though we’ll be having the Continental holiday we’d planned,” she said.