UK Sex Shop News

Fashion

Winner: Monsterlune (France)

Monsterlune is the brainchild of Estelle Riviere, an outstanding costumier, artist and seamstress who resides in North London. Her outfits are dramatic animalistic and mysterious, often using masks and a delightful combination of the grotesque with the delicate. www.facebook.com/monsterlune.

Runner Up: Am Statik (UK)

Absolutely amazing rubber clothing, intricate and unique, arriving just when we thought we'd seen it all and nothing new could ever be made in rubber! Created by Amy Day, each garment is dynamic in its colours, details and contours, and is totally desirable clothing for both those curious or those immersed in the scene. www.amstatik.com

Runner Up: Second Coming (UK)

D. is a historic and much-loved figure on London's Vintage and Fetish/ Sexy clothing scene, who sells her recycled clothes at fetish markets and festivals. D says she gains pleasure from seeing people being transformed by the clothing she sells them, because the transformation is more than skin deep. D. creates something sexy in the demure, something alluring to all in extreme fetish clothing, and produces kinkiness in the very ordinary. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Second-Coming-Fan-Page/190429094302678

ETO or Erotic Trade Only is the trade magazine for the UK adult trade, particularly areas associated with sex shops and their products. The ETO Awards are voted for by the members of the UK adult trade.

Congratulations to:

Services to the Industry: Tim Hemming.
Best Sales Team: ABS Holdings

Best Online Resource: Sextoysbuzz.com [beating Melon Farmers]
Best Online Retailer: Bondara.co.uk
Most Innovative Retailer: Sh!
Best Individual Store: Nice 'n' Naughty in Brighton
Best Erotic Books Brand: Xcite Books
Best Retail Chain: Ann Summers.

Best Lingerie Distributor: Kevco Wholesale.
Best Gay Interest Distributor: Mister B.
Best Overseas Distributor: Orion.
Best Pleasure Product Distributor: Planet Earth.
Best R18 DVD Distributor: ABS Holdings.

Best Lingerie Brand: Seven Til Midnight.
Best consumable Brand: ID Lube.
Most Innovative Brand: Fetish Fantasy
Best Pleasure Product Brand: Rocks Off.
Best Film Brand: Harmony.
Best New Product Range: Leaf
Best Product Marketing: Fetish Fantasy
Best Product Packaging: Lelo
Best Consumable: ID Glide
Best Male Product: Hands Solo
Best Female Product: Studio Mascara Ward

A sex shop has won a Diamond Jubilee contest prize for having Bournemouth's best window display.

The Easy Tiger store in The Triangle was crowned as winner for its red, white and blue display with slogans including polish your crown jewels and keep calm, keep it up .

The win was down to a public vote, and Easy Tiger's 87 votes were 40 higher than their closest rival. But some nutters were suitably 'shocked'. Richard Marshall said:

I am disgusted that a sex shop in Bournemouth's Triangle has been handed the prestigious best window display award. I don't understand how a picture of a man lifting his T-shirt up to show his pants can be described as tasteful or respectful to her majesty.

Easy Tiger was presented with the Best Independent Jubilee Window Display by the Bournemouth Chamber of Trade and Commerce at the Hotel Miramar. The chamber's vice-president Mandy Payne said it made everyone smile when the winner was announced.

Jonathan Spencer, owner of Easy Tiger, said:

We have shoppers from 18 to 80 odd and try to offer products to all generations. By making our windows cheeky and humorous, we hope to challenge the traditional perception of a blacked-out, seedy sex shop.

Kudos also to the Beep Studio in Bournemouth which worked with the shop on the window display.

Nine businesses in Soho and Covent Garden won a High Court victory after claiming the council acted illegally by charging them up to £ 26,000 extra a year to help fund its crackdown on unlicensed premises.

Mr Justice Keith, handing down judgment last month, said a new European directive did not permit the council to add the premium to its annual sex establishment licence. This means the 13 establishments owned by the nine firms, including Simply Pleasure, Janus and Darker Enterprises, are in line to be refunded about £ 50,000 or more each in excess charges.

But the Standard has learned that Westminster Council is determined to appeal against the judgment as it doesn't want to have to pay itself for continuing raids against unlicensed shop. Tony Devenish, Westminster's cabinet member for public health, said:

Who else pays? Do you think it's fair that the taxpayer pays for the illegal activity of others? It's like saying if you don't go out and commit crime yourself, why should you pay for the police force? We clearly can't have unregulated sex establishments in the West End, they lead to criminality.

But Tim Hemming of Simply Pleasure said:

I think I can speak for all the licensees in Westminster and we are very pleased with the judgment. At the end of the day, we were paying £ 30,000 a year for a licence that was not set correctly. You can't put a punitive charge on something that is legal. We just felt they were charging us too much money and it's been proven.

Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson has whinged about Ann Summers' Summer of Sex promotion which invited customers to dress up in bikinis to get free swimwear and to eat ice creams covered in different flavour lubricants.

The nationwide promotion prompted a complaint by one of Jackson's constituents. The MP wrote to the company got a reply from the firm's brand director Fiona Davis saying that, in light of his letter, the promotion was being totally withdrawn.

The prudish Jackson spewed:

I'm not a prude but... I feel that when one of my constituents complains to me that they found this inappropriate then I have a duty to act.

I don't wish to affect the company's business and I wish them well ...BUT.. .I personally found the promotion tacky and distasteful.

When you consider that this promotion was being advertised in store windows up and down the country, many impressionable young children were getting a wrong impression.

From a political point of view you can't going around spending thousands of pounds trying to prevent teen pregnancies and then turn a blind eye to a campaign promoting sex.

Erotic Trade Only is the UK adult industry trade magazine. The annual ETO Trade Show held at Birmingham NEC also hosts the ETO Awards. This year the show will be held on the 24th and 25th June. Voting is open now for ETO readers.

Best Retail Chain

• Ann Summers
• Harmony
• Nice n Naughty
• Pulse & Cocktails
• Simply Pleasure

Best Individual Store

• Harmony (Oxford Street)
• Nice n Naughty (Brighton)
• Saints & Sinners (Blackpool)
• Scandals (Birkenhead)
• Vibez (Maidstone)

Most Innovative Retailers

• Ann Summers
• Harmony
• Lovehoney
• Nice n Naughty
• Sh!

Best Online Retailer

• Bondara.co.uk
• Lovehoney.co.uk
• Passion8.com
• SexShop365.co.uk
• Sextoys.co.uk

Erotic Trade Only is the UK adult industry trade magazine. The annual ETO Trade Show held at Birmingham NEC also hosts the ETO Awards. This year the show will be held on the 24th and 25th June. Voting is open now for ETO readers.

Best Female Product

• Jessica Rabbit MK2 (Loving Joy)
• Studio Mascara Wand (Screaming O)
• SwanRange (BMS Factory)
• Wand Essentials (Wand Essentials)
• We-Vibe 3 (Standard Innovation Corp.)

Best Male Product

• Fleshlight Girls (Fleshlight)
• Hand Solo (Rocks-Off)
• Rev1000 (Loving Joy)
• Revo (Nexus)
• Super Scker (Erolution)

Best Consumable

• ID Glide (ID Lubricants)
• Liquid Gold (Liquid Gold Aromas)
• RelaxXXX Anal Spray (RelaxXXX)
• Slide (Loving Joy)
• Wolfberry (Wolfberry)

Sex shop owners have won a High Court victory over licensing fees which could see them claw back an estimated £ 1 million.

A judge has ruled that Westminster City Council unlawfully used licence fee income to enforce against illegal sex shops. Mr Justice Keith declared that a recently introduced European directive did not permit the determination of a reasonable licence fee to include the costs of enforcement.

Tony Devenish, the council's Cabinet member for licensing and public health, spouted:

Naturally we are disappointed at this decision, which we intend to appeal.

Westminster City Council has always maintained that the use of licence fee income to enforce against illegal sex shops is a proper use of public money, protecting the quality of life for our residents and visitors, including the global reputation of London.

Enforcing against the illegal sex trade actually benefits those who are legitimate operators in the sex industry.

With millions of extra visitors about to descend on London to celebrate the Jubilee and Olympics, it is critical people see the best face of our city.

The landmark ruling was a victory for Simply Pleasure Ltd and six other long-standing licensees of 11 sex shops in London's Soho and two others in Covent Garden and the West End selling adult sex toys, DVDs, and books and magazines.

The judge said that in the past the cost of enforcing the licensing system was often reflected in the licence fee. But in 2009 new regulations were introduced to implement EU Directive 2006/123/EC, which was aimed at creating a free and competitive market for services within the European Union .

The judge said that whatever domestic law had permitted in the past , the directive did not allow the licence fee to exceed the administrative costs covering the steps which an applicant for a licence has to take if he wishes to be granted a licence or to have his licence renewed. The judge said:

The fact that the council has preferred over the years to use the licence fee to charge the operators of sex establishments for enforcing the system does not affect the proper interpretation of the 2009 regulations.

For all these reasons, therefore, I have concluded that since the year beginning February 1 2010 the council has not been permitted, when determining the reasonable licence fee for sex establishments, to reflect the fee which it determines the costs of enforcing the system.

Pulse & Cocktails in Toll Bar Way, Sawtry, has been granted a sex shop licence renewal by Huntingdonshire District Council.

The shop has been subject to ongoing nutter opposition and a council spokeswoman for the council said:

We are well aware that there is considerable public feeling about this establishment. In reaching our decision today we have had to have at all times regard to the relevant legislation concerning the licensing of sex shops.

On balance and having heard all of the evidence today we are content that these premises have been well run for the previous year, no harm to any individual has been evidenced before us.

The shop also saw its two new horizontal advertising boards outside the premises approved, but a proposed six-metre high totem pole advert will not be allowed. Other issues about fencing, staff dining and CRB vetting were also resolved.

However the local residents appear to have been well wound up. Keith Walters, a former leader of Cambridgeshire County Council who lives in the village, has quit the Tories in a row over the opening of the shop.

Walters, who led opposition to the shop, said he had left the party over the way in which the case had been handled. He said:

It was over the sex shop and the complete disregard for the feelings of local people.

 I could name 10 people who were long-term serious donors to the Conservative Party who are no longer that.

The Sex Census 2012, surveyed almost 25,000 people in the UK about their sex lives and claims to be the biggest survey of its kind. Sponsors Ann Summers and Relate both hope to use the data gleaned from the survey to gain a better understanding of what makes the nation tick .

Ann Summers hopes that the partnership and Sex Census will help it appeal to a broader audience and make sure the brand is associated with the serious side of a healthy sex life. Relate hoped to broaden perceptions of its brand and services beyond relationship counselling to include sex therapy. Both parties hope to make the dual branded survey an annual census.

The Report is straightforward and informative without being preachy or judgemental. Eg on the subject of Pornography:

There is still a big gender split when it comes to pornography use: just 19% of women use it once a week or more, compared to 58% of men. And 41% of women use pornography once a month or more, compared to 76% of men.

For many years it's been said that women are more interested in pornography when there is a relational component – for example where there is a storyline that details part of a relationship rather than just images of sex – while men are more visually stimulated by images; but our survey says differently. Although a significantly higher proportion of men use pornography regularly, the choices made by men and women are remarkably similar. There is almost no difference at all between the genders when it comes to accessing pornography on the internet, while slightly more women than men use adult TV channels and buy their porn on DVD. The only variations are that women are still bigger consumers of erotic literature and twice as many men access live sex cams from their computers or via their phone.

The director of Pulse and Cocktails sex shop in Sawtry, who was denied planning permission to put an advert on a totem pole, has vowed to contest the decision.

The shop had applied to replace its horizontal advert in front of the shop with a new vertical one attached to an existing totem pole six metres above the ground. They also applied to erect two entrance signs at the front of the building, which were approved.

The application for the signage change received 18 objections from residents. The vertical advert was rejected by planning officials from Huntingdonshire District Counci, claiming it was not in fitting with the area.

Andrew Moffat of Huntingdonshire District Council said:

The impact on amenity arising from the proposed totem sign is, by virtue of the height, unnecessary proliferation of sigange. Visual intrusion upon the rural character of the area is considered unacceptable.

Pulse and Cocktails director Graham Kidd believes the decision was made for moral rather than planning reasons and will appeal to the Secretary of State. He said:

The wording and size of the advert is identical to the one in situ, it would just be vertical and placed higher. That would allow people to see the sign further down the road. The current signage is not good enough, people have said they struggled to find the shop and that is hurting our business.

The austerity sweeping the country is taking a toll on Britain's sex industry.

The Latest accounts for Stringfellow Restaurants relating to Stringfellow's lap dancing venues show pre-tax profit fell to £ 480,096 for 2011 from £ 702,811 but with sales rising to £ 9.4m from £ 8.7m.

Meanwhile privately owned Ann Summers, controlled by pleasure entrepreneur David Gold, said it was forced to launch new value ranges in an attempt to beat the downturn. It said the tough trading climate had forced it to slash prices and splash out on costly promotions to compete with cut price rivals. Cheap websites offering discounted bras and knickers, along with less racy alternatives hawked by the big supermarket giants, hurt Ann Summers.

This caused profits at the Surrey-based business to also almost halve. Pre-tax annual profits fell to £ 2.7m from £ 5.7m while sales also fell to £ 115m from £ 118m, latest accounts reveal.

...Read the full article