Mom Hires Strippers for Son's 16th Birthday

Won't someone think of the children??? SOUTH GLENS FALLS, N.Y. — At the southern end of town, about a mile and a half from Cooper’s Cave, a spot memorialized in James Fenimore Cooper’s “Last of the Mohicans,” a far less bucolic locale has dragged this small North Country community of 3,500 people into the limelight. South Glens Falls Police Department Judy H. Viger was arrested after she hired two exotic dancers to perform at a birthday party for her 16-year-old son. Inside the Spare Time Family Fun Center, a 42-lane bowling alley, a November birthday party for a 16-year-old boy has gained an outsize level of notoriety because of the party favors offered that day: two exotic dancers, who performed for some of the invited guests. The dancers entertained in a separate, enclosed bar area, and the glass doors and windows were covered with brown paper so bowlers and other patrons could not see what was going on. But South Glens Falls is a small town, and word spread quickly, especially on social media. “It was all over Facebook,” said Xavier DeLuke, a 17-year-old junior at South Glens Falls High School. Daniele Fish, a parent, said, “I’m sure a lot of kids knew about it right away. My sixth-grader came home and told me about it.” But it was not until last Monday, when the boy’s mother, Judy H. Viger, 33, was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, that the episode went viral. Calls have come in from media outlets around the world. Jay Leno even opened his monologue Thursday night with a three-joke sequence about the party. “Hey,” Mr. Leno said. “Have you heard about this?” The answer, to the dismay of many residents here, was an unqualified yes. “It’s mind-boggling,” said the mayor of South Glens Falls, Keith Donohue. “My sister and brother-in-law live in D.C. and it’s the talk of the town down there, too.” About 80 people were present at the party, including guests as young as 14. Some who were upset by the lewd conduct told their parents, who reported the incident to police. “They were expecting ice cream, cake and presents, not lap dancing and exotic dancing,” said the Saratoga County district attorney, James A. Murphy III. Ms. Viger, of nearby Gansevoort, is accused of hiring two female adult “entertainers” who performed “personal and intimate dances” for some party attendees, police said. Photos surfaced on Facebook. One picture, made available by Mr. Murphy’s office, shows a female dancer, wearing only a thong and bikini top, with her legs wrapped around a teenage boy’s head and shoulders. The exotic dancers work for a business called Tops In Bottoms, in Albany, that provides female adult entertainers for special events. “A lot of bad decisions were made,” the company’s owner, Nathan Rice, said. Ms. Viger, who is to be arraigned on March 7, could not be reached, and her lawyer, Joseph Brennan, did not return calls for comment. Because Ms. Viger is charged with a misdemeanor and she has no prior convictions, she probably will face no jail time, Mr. Murphy said. Police said no other arrests are expected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/nyregion/eyes-on-south-glens-falls-after-tale-of-strippers-at-a-teenage-party.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0



• Rest of story: "Mr. Murphy said he believes the charges are appropriate, primarily because the activities Ms. Viger organized involved other people’s children. “Parents of the children who attended had no idea that the adult female entertainers would be present and were shocked and stunned when they discovered what had occurred,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s a salacious story that has all the ingredients for what it seems people want to read about.” Employees at the bowling alley refused to talk about the incident; Spare Time’s parent company, Bowl New England, said in a statement that it did not arrange or pay for “the entertainment that was provided at the party.” The company said it is cooperating with law enforcement authorities. South Glens Falls is in northernmost Saratoga County, and sits beside the Hudson River as it rushes down out of the Adirondacks toward New York City, about 200 miles away. Large paper mills, a major source of local industry, line the banks on both sides of the river, their huge plumes of billowing white steam a constant presence in the local landscape. Cooper’s Cave has become a tourist spot and a source of local pride, but in many ways, South Glens Falls has struggled to establish an identity distinct from Glens Falls, its much larger neighbor to the north. The village has also been slow to benefit from the fast-paced economic growth of southern Saratoga County, fueled by GlobalFoundries’ new $6.9 billion semiconductor plant. South Glens Falls is an incorporated village in the Town of Moreau, and both town and village have hopes of attracting spinoff businesses related to the growth. Yet the Moreau Industrial Park, created about 20 years ago, has just one tenant. Many people here said it was unfortunate that the bowling party has attracted so much attention, especially when there are other, more substantive issues and concerns. At the high school, for example, a marathon dance charity event, which raised $395,352 last year, takes place this weekend, and the students hope to raise more than $400,000 this year. Goods and services are donated by dozens of local business leaders, including Arthur Dare, a barber who cuts hair during the dance, and gives all his proceeds to the charitable event. Mr. Dare said he came home from work late Thursday night and saw Mr. Leno joking about South Glens Falls. “I just feel bad that 600 good kids and the community work so hard on the dance marathon and the focus is on this,” he said. “It’s all about strippers.”

• The mom should've called me. I would've done it for free.

• The Mom was worried that he might be gay so she used the birthday excuse to get him lap dances from strippers.

• But mom, I'm gay.

  Your 16 year-old

• "viral" is going to ruin our world. This should have remained a nice, small town scandal that locals could have enjoyed for decades.

• I knew a boy in high school whose mom, on his 16th birthday, got him a naked-lady cake. with a cherry between her legs. Classy.

• I wonder if the bowling alley will get taken to court, too.

• Ugh. It's *girl* strippers.

• She had her son at 17. She has great judgement.

• Dear Lord in heaven!

  Concerned Swim Team Mom

• This isn't a case of people being sex negative. I think it's a pretty justified response to be horrified if your child in their early teens was there and saw that.

• Yeah, I did the math too, r10. Hell, maybe mom is also a stripper and these were her colleagues. We know she is definitely one of those "cool" moms who will buy the kid beer and possibly weed. I hate moms like that, trying way too hard, honey. I'm sure she has cool tats too!

• [quote]The exotic dancers work for a business called Tops In Bottoms Seriously? No one has picked up on this name?

• Best.Mom.Ever

  C. Sheen

• Couldn't this have been done in the community room at their trailer park?

• Turn these lemons into lemonade, people! Send the strippers to the high school's charity dance marathon and watch the donations pour in.

• R12, she'll probably sleep with a few of her son's friends as well.

• Oh definitely, r17. I'm sure she already has one picked out. One day he will come to the trailer when he knows Cody Jr. isn't home and mom will have the Coors already cold..cue porn music.

• Upstate NY is so bleak. Strippers at his 16th birthday are probably the best it's ever gonna get for this guy.

• There must be an untold story somewhere within the story. Only the stripper part was focused on. There must be a more perplexing element in there.

• America's stupid puritanism rears its ugly head again. They figured if she was rich enough to rent out the room and hire strippers, they can take her to the cleaners financially.

• everyone is stupid

• [quote] I think it's a pretty justified response to be horrified if your child in their early teens was there and saw that. "horrified"? Because of nudity? People like you need to be nuked out of existence.

• Srippers or Dancers have alot of guts and are very cool thats why most bitches are jealous of them no matter what smack they dish about

• Horrified because a PARENT organized it and deemed it acceptable for High School Student, r23. A group of 16-year-old boys hiring their own strippers without parental knowledge would not have made the news outside of that town.

  Ward%20Cleaver

• Another aspect that wasn't correct is that the other kids parents didn't know that would happen. If you want to do that for your kid you sicko, fine but don't expose it to others that aren't your own.

• Mom should be in the country jail for "Corrupting the Morals of a Minor."

  Soon-to-be Pope Emeritus

• There was a show years ago (Sally Jessie or Jenny Jones) about a woman who hired a stripper for her 12 year old son's birthday party. They (Mom, Stepdad, son, daughter) lived in an apartment above the stripper bar. One of the things I remember was the stripper non-chalantly confirming that, yes, she sprayed whip cream on the boy's bare chest and preceded to lick it off. Stepdad seemed too know it was a bad idea but was too much of a wuss to say so. Mom was okay with it because "he has been sexually active since he was 10."

• An upstate New York woman pleaded not guilty on Thursday to five counts of child endangerment after other parents complained that she hired female strippers for her son's 16th birthday party. Judy Viger, 33, of Gansevoort, New York, denied the charges of endangering the welfare of a child at her arraignment in the Town of Moreau Court, according to a court spokesperson. If convicted, she would face up to one year in jail. Viger was arrested after parents of five teenage partygoers saw Facebook pictures of the scantily clad dancers performing intimate routines at the bash last November 3 at Spare Time Bowling Center in South Glens Falls, New York, about 50 miles north of Albany. "The parents of the children who attended had no idea that the adult female entertainers would be present and were shocked and stunned when they discovered what had occurred," the Saratoga County district attorney, James A. Murphy, III, said in a statement released at the time of Viger's arrest. "Pictures of the event and the dancers first surfaced in media accounts of the story once they were posted to one of the attendees' Facebook page," Murphy said. Viger was accused of hiring adult female entertainers from Tops In Bottoms Entertainment, of Albany, who performed at the birthday party. If convicted of any or all of the five counts of endangering the welfare of a child, Viger faces a maximum of one year behind bars as any sentence would run concurrently since the counts stem from a single incident, according to a court spokesperson. Viger was due back in court on April 4.

• She should have bought him a gun. That's such a nice birthday present

• I actually grew up a town away from South Glens Falls and I can attest that a stripper at a 16th birthday party is probably about as good as it gets for a lot of people there. When I was growing up in the 80s-90s the entire area was in decline, but going back now is even more depressing. Part of the problem [besides the obvious Wal-Martization and decline of local businesses of small towns in general] is the fact that South Glens Falls doesn't really have a "downtown" per se. Recently there has been a big push from the locals on Facebook to get Ellen DeGeneres to give the SGF Marathon Dance some publicity. Hopefully someone at the school or in the town is smart enough to use the publicity from this to bring it to her attention.