Lap Dancing in Wales

Swansea Council is considering a morality policy of banning table dancing from the city.

The local authority will consider introducing a new amendment to its licensing policy next week.

Council leader David Phillips claimed there was support for the idea, following a public consultation which was carried out earlier this year. He said:

The council cannot prevent organisations from making applications to establish these kinds of venues, but we can look to introduce changes in the licensing policies which state clearly that the appropriate number of these venues in certain areas is nil.

From the feedback we have had there is strong support, particularly in the city centre, for the concept that the appropriate number of sex entertainment venues in the city centre is nil.

The city centre aims to be a place which is welcoming to families at all times of the day and evening. There is also a growing residential presence in the city centre and strong faith communities are established there.

Local authorities are not allowed to make their decisions on any moral basis and the council's licensing committee would still have to consider each application on its merits.

Sex entertainment venues in Swansea have been banned by the local council following a decision to cap their number at nil .

The policy has been changed from each application being dealt with on its own merits to one where they will normally be refused . It covers lap dancing, pole dancing, table dancing, strip shows, peep shows and live sex shows.

A report to the cabinet, which made the decision said:

Members have requested that the current policy is reviewed with a view to introducing an appropriate number of nil for sexual entertainment venues in the city centre. It is not proposed that an appropriate number will be considered for the other types of sex establishments and any such applications will continue to be dealt with on their merits.

Swansea currently has one venue with a licence for sex entertainment, which runs out in April next year. But its club Bellissima, which has since changed to bar and lounge venue Club Rouge, has not been able to use its licence as Swansea council is the property's leaseholder and will not agree a change of planning use.

York Place Baptist Church minister, the Reverend Haydn Dennis, objected to the licence stating there were deep spiritual objections .

Swansea Council's cabinet has agreed to launch a public consultation on the new policy banning the licensing of sex establishments.

A bid to open Bellissima lap dancing club next to a city centre Baptist chapel is to be considered by Swansea Council.

Swansea University women's officer Eleri Jones has objected to Thomas-Bellis Entertainment Ltd's licence application saying:

Lap dancing clubs fuel a sexist culture in which it's increasingly acceptable to treat women as sex objects, not people.

And Swansea teacher Rachelle Bright said in a letter of objection:

While this type of 'entertainment' is wrong on so many levels, including the degeneration of women into mere objects, what I am most horrified by is the location of the lap dancing club.

Opposite a youth-themed burger bar, Eddie's Rockets, within eyeshot of the Vue Cinema, on a thoroughfare that links Swansea Museum and the Waterfront Museum into town, as well as being a short stroll from the LC leisure facilities!

Swansea West AM Julie James and Gower AM Edwina Hart have also submitted written objections and about 800 people have signed petitions against plans for the club.

But a spokesman for club said there would be no external advertising, only open 10pm until 4am with security staff and a challenge 25 entry policy.

Update: To have the effrontery to put it next door to my church ...

27th April 2012. See  article from  christian.org.uk

The minister of York Place Baptist Church, Haydn Dennis, said there had been tremendous support from the public to oppose the club and 1,026 people had signed his petition so far.

In an interview with BBC Wales he said:

To have the effrontery to put it next door to my church -- how much more brazen can you get?

Update: Nutters on tenterhooks

28th April 2012. See  article from  bbc.co.uk

Swansea council is refusing to say whether or not it has given a licence for a strip club in York Street, Swansea.

The council's licensing committee made its decision on Wednesday, but the council says it will not be made public until the finer detail is worked out. A determination will be issued in due course.

The minister of the York Place Baptist Church - which is next door to the proposed club - the Reverend Haydn Dennis, called the situation a disgrace .

We are all on tenterhooks. We just don't know. It is a very unsatisfactory situation,

Update: Licence granted with repressive conditions and a threat that lap dancing would break lease conditions anyway

3rd May 2012. See  article from  thisissouthwales.co.uk

Women's rights nutters have ludicrously claimed that Swansea councillors don't value female citizens in the city after granting a sexual entertainment venue licence.

Councillor Keith Marsh, chair of Swansea Council's Licensing Committee, said:

The committee decided after a lengthy and searching discussion to vote in favour of the applicant and grant the licence.

63 conditions have been imposed, some of which were specifically designed to protect the interests of female performers at the venue following representations by feminist groups of their concerns. It is considered those concerns have been adequately addressed.

Marsh said the conditions included rules that no dancer shall perform any sexually explicit or lewd act, there shall be no tableside dancing, no lap-dancing, no peep shows and there shall be no live sex shows. The licence agreement also stated there shall be a minimum distance of one metre between dancers and seated customers in the club.

Also the council claims that the club will not be able to offer sexual entertainment as the local authority is the landlord of the building and to do so would be a breach of the terms of the lease on the premises. However it is also reported that the lease arrangement for the venue is not quite as straightforward as the council states.

But this compromise didn't seem to impress the absolutist moralists from Swansea Feminist Network and the church.

Swansea Feminist Network chair Adele Jones said:

We think that (the decision to grant the licence) demonstrates the licensing committee didn't take any notice of the evidence that we submitted. By doing it (granting the licence) they have demonstrated that they don't value the female citizens of Swansea. The fact that they granted it is enough for us to say we will carry on protesting against it.

While we think it is a good thing they can't use these premises it indicates should they make another application the committee would go ahead and grant a licence.

York Place Baptist Chapel pastor Haydn Dennis said:

As far as the church is concerned it is a partial victory but I'm not going to be happy until we get the absolute news from the council that the application is dead and buried.

Swansea planners are expected to give the green light to a nightclub, paving the way for a supposedly controversial lap dancing club.

Planning chiefs have recommended approving proposals for the change of use of existing ground-floor units and a residential first-floor into a nightclub on The Strand.

A license for the premise to be used as a lap dancing bar was given the green light in July last year. The licensing committee said it had no option but to approve the application because no objections had been raised.

Seven Leisure (Swansea) consultant Roger Dean, who submitted the application, confirmed to the Post in January that once building work at the site is complete, the firm planned to grant a lease to adult entertainment group Fantasy Lounge.

One objection was received from the Swansea Domestic Abuse Forum, a group which aims to oversee the Domestic Abuse Strategy which was launched on March 3. The 35 forum members includes strategic and voluntary agencies, including police, education, health, women aid groups and black minority groups.

Domestic abuse co-ordinator for Swansea Council Ali Morris said members were gobsmacked when she informed them about the proposed club last year: We are not a happy group, she said. We feel it would put extra pressure on a lot of services in Swansea.

The forum also believes allowing a lap-dancing club in the city goes against the Domestic Abuse Strategy which was ratified by the council. We have already emailed (council leader) Chris Holley a number of times with our concerns. I do think a lot of people are unaware of this happening and I think once people realise the scale of the building they will understand. It will be your sisters and your daughters who will be going to work there.

Plans to convert a derelict warehouse in The Strand into an adult club were submitted to the authority last month.

If approved, it would feature a stage with lap dancing poles, three dancing podiums, a naked dance area and a number of bays for one-on-one dances.

The applicant is Fantasy Lounge, which runs a similar club in Cardiff's St Mary Street, employing 40 dancers.

The vicar of St Mary's, in Swansea, Andrew Vessey, challenged the council to show it had standards and said the club would be an inappropriate use of space and of the female body: What people do with their own money and time is up to them ...BUT... when it's clearly open to the public in a city centre that has already got quite enough venues, there is a concern by those of us who have standards and ideals that this is inappropriate. It's an inappropriate use of space and inappropriate use of the female body.

He said the club would be degrading and was purely about making money: Many of them are not doing this for fun, but because they have to for money. I think there comes a point where the public needs to be protected from people. It's simply about making money. There must be a point where we say enough is enough.

People who seem to be dependent on that kind of stimulus have got plenty of outlets already. We have a fine city and we have some great traditions here, by way of enterprise and creativity. Do we want Swansea to be synonymous as a place to watch lap dancing? There's already a plethora of nightclubs in Swansea. There must come a point where public concerns about standards have to be listened to.

Update: Licence Approved After Council Receives No Objections

25th August 2009. Based on article from walesonline.co.uk

A pole and lap-dancing club has been given the go-ahead after critics didn't formally object to it. Plans by Fantasy Lounge to convert a derelict warehouse in the centre of Swansea into a plush club featuring topless women met a 'barrage' of public criticism.

The vicar of Swansea's city-centre St Mary's Church, Andrew Vessey, complained the club would be an inappropriate use of space and the female body. The vicar was supported by letters in a local newspaper and on websites but Wales on Sunday can reveal the club has been cleared to start putting up its poles because no-one objected in writing.

Ioan Richard, chairman of Swansea Council's licensing committee, said: We had no option but to agree the licence as there were no public or police objections on file.