A "clean" man without a record is put on the licenses of queer dives and bust-out joints and gets paid from $50 to $100 a week for the use of his name and from then on the real ownership is never looked into except perfunctorily. In addition to arrangements for the original okay monthly "ice" runs from $350 a month on a small operation to $600 a month for resorts grossing up to $4,000 a week, and more in proportion. When a place gets "hot," the joints are told they've got to take a ten day suspension to cool off. But if they get "too hot" then the intermediaries or lay-off men advise them in advance to "sell" to another guy with a clean sheet, who won't have any trouble passing the board and preserving the license.
- Jack Lait explains how an organized crime syndicate ran a gay bar, in his syndicated column "New York Confidential", September 10, 1959.