Lap Dancing in East Midlands

A strip club that was denied permission last year has now been allowed to open.

Leicester City Council have granted a sexual entertainment venue licence for Angels Gentlemen's Club in New Park Road.

Last year, a similar application from the company, KN Leisure, to open the club between 8pm and 4am was rejected. The new application, which is for opening hours between midnight and 5am, was granted permission by city councillors sitting on a licensing enforcement sub-committee.

A strange absence of explanation in the newspaper 'reporting' considering the judical review alluded to in an article from  strip-magazine.com :

In what will probably turn out to be a very important decision Angels in Leicester has been granted an SEV after taking the council to judicial revue. This is the first of what I expect to be a large number of legal challenges pointing out the incompatibility of the new act with a number of EU rules designed to ensure an open market.

A lap dancing club has been given permission by magistrates to perform so-called Stag on Stage sessions.

Spearmint Rhino went to court to challenge restrictions put in place by miserable Leicester City Council's new licensing regime for sexual entertainment venues in the city.

Bosses of the club appealed against city council regulations prohibiting audience participation in performances.

Julian Skeens, representing Spearmint Rhino, said the provision of Stag on Stage sessions was standard practice in the industry. He told the court the session consisted of a bridegroom-to-be taken on to stage by a lap dancer and singled out for special attention. He said:

It's the case of a young man on his stag night who agrees to do something he's a bit embarrassed about the next day. It's almost de rigeur. It is a bit of harmless fun.

Absolutely no sexual activity. Some titillation, yes, some fun with it, we certainly hope so. That's why Spearmint Rhino is the world's largest lap-dancing empire.

Mike Broster, head of miserableness at Leicester City Council, told the court the regulations were in place to try to protect people. He said the regulations were also deigned to try to ensure there would be no sexual activity within lap dancing clubs.

Chairman of the bench Margaret Bowler said Stag on Stage sessions should be allowed as long as certain rules were adhered to. These include that the customer should be fully dressed, the lap dancer should be dressed and there should be no touching by either party.

Three lap dancing clubs in Leicester will not be granted new licences after a city council decision.

Lap dancing at the Baby Blue, Panache and Angels clubs is being stopped supposedly because their locations are not considered 'appropriate'.

Platinum Lace in Abbey Street and Spearmint Rhino in Belgrave Gate will be allowed to continue to operate.

The three clubs will only be allowed to stay open if they change their shows so they do not include sexual entertainment , the council said.

Panache is considered close to residential properties in Yeoman Street. Angels is close to community facilities being built by a university, while Baby Blue, in New Bond Street, is close to a shopping centre.

Update: Legal Action

23rd May 2012. From thisisleicestershire.co.uk

A lap-dancing club refused a licence to continue featuring sexual performances has won an appeal against part of the decision.

An application for a sexual event venue licence made by businessman Krzysztof Neumann, who runs Angels was rejected by the city council in December.

Councillors said they were concerned the application was being made on behalf of former owner Jagdeep Singh Bhader, someone to whom they would not grant a licence. They also claimed the location was not appropriate given that a sports centre was being built by De Montfort University in nearby Dun's Lane.

At a hearing this week, Leicester magistrates overturned the first part of the ruling and ordered the council to pay £ 5,000 in costs.

However, a decision on the location appeal has to be made by a high court judge, which is not likely until September. Until the outcome of the second part of the appeal, Mr Neumann is unable to re-employ dancers, but is able to trade as a hostess club.

Two Leicester lap dancing clubs are facing objections to their applications for licences.

There are currently five such clubs running in the city and their applications are to be discussed by Leicester City Council's licensing committee next week. Council officials have recommended licences be granted to three of the clubs after they received no complaints about them.

De Montfort University has objected to a licence being granted for Angels in New Park Street because it is opposite to where its new leisure centre is currently being built, in Dun's Lane. It says it wants the new centre to be used by the wider community as well as students and it does not want it to be near a lap dancing club.

A university spokesman spewed:

The proximity of the Angels Club to the entrance of the new leisure centre causes the potential for conflicting uses and heightens the possibility of sensitivities arising between the users of each building. For this reason, the university objects to the application for a sexual entertainment licence in this location.

One Angels Club customer pointed out:

I'm not sure it is fair that the club has been there for years and the university hasn't finished building the sports centre yet but it is still objecting. If the university doesn't like the fact they are near a lap dancing club, they should have built their sports centre somewhere else.

Residents in Yeoman Street, near Panache, have conjured a similarly spurious objection. One nutter from the Fabric building block of flats next to the club, wrote:

The venue currently functions as a lap dancing club which, in itself, is not ideal in a residential area. Although the venue is in the town centre, residential properties have been built directly next door and in close proximity to the venue.

City council's licensing team manager Rachel Hall said:

Our new licensing policy for sex entertainment venues says they should not be in areas near residential properties or community facilities. Of course, it will be down to the councillors to decide whether to grant any of the licences.

Comment: De Mented University

9th December 2011. From Alan

This is utterly ridiculous. Hasn't De Mented University got anything better to do? You get the same kind of idiocy from people who move into red light areas and then whinge about the tarts. Come to think of it, there also the pillocks who move in opposite a fourteenth century church and then moan that their Sunday morning lie-in is disturbed by loud clanging noises from the bell tower.

Council bosses will decide this week whether to limit the number of lap-dancing clubs in Leicester.

It comes after the city council carried out a survey in which it asked 622 members of the public whether a limit should be imposed, with 85% saying yes .

Leicester city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and his cabinet colleagues are expected to agree a limit of five clubs in the city. There are currently five adult entertainment venues in the city.

Each club will be required to get a £ 6,000 licence to operate. These will be granted to venues that meet strict restrictions to ensure not too much fun.

Moralist councillors have recommended that Leicester has no more than three strip clubs or lap-dancing bars. Members of the city licensing and morals committee last night voted that the number of such venues should be reduced from five to three.

The policy document before the committee suggested it should limit the number of sex entertainment venues to four inside the inner road and one other.

However, Councillor Caroline Scuplak pointed out that a public consultation document showed that, apart from having none at all, a majority of people had voted for there to be three such venues. He said: It is right and proper that this committee should reflect the view of the people in the public consultation.

Councillor Barbara Potter said she totally opposed the existence of any such clubs: She said: It is not fair for me to go out with my grandchildren on a Sunday afternoon to see half-naked women on billboards. I think there should be a blanket ban on these.

The existing venues are Spearmint Rhino, Panache, Platinum Lace, Angels and Baby Blue. If the policy is endorsed it means only a maximum three of the clubs can continue trading.

The cabinet will make its final decision on March 3.

Update: Draconian

From thisisleicestershire.co.uk

The boss of a lap dancing club has hit out at city council plans to limit the number of venues in Leicester to three. Les Pierce, operations director and partner at Platinum Lace, in Abbey Lane, said the proposal was draconian .

Pierce said the decision was heavy-handed and unnecessary.

We are a professionally-run establishment which takes the service we offer to our customers very seriously. I can see why the council might want to limit the number to the five clubs which are already operating in the city, but to reduce it three makes no sense. It is draconian. This is our seventh year in Leicester and we've not encountered any problems with the police or the council yet.

We have about 25 staff here and about 60 dancers, so if we were to lose our licence then they would be out of jobs. Platinum Lace has nothing to hide and we welcome regulation and transparency, but this just does not seem fair. All we are doing is meeting a demand as part of a legitimate night-time economy.

A Nottingham bar has had its application to stage lap, pole and table dancing turned down.

Nottingham City Council rejected the proposals by Snug Lounge Club after moral objections from police.

Club directors told the authority's special licensing panel that they had been looking to bring in international burlesque acts, like Dita Von Teese.

Director Inam Rahman told the meeting: We are looking at offering a very highbrow burlesque event. It has become quite a popular attraction. I don't think it will harm the city or the city centre if such a small venue were to offer additional services.

But police inspector Paul Winter told the meeting that it was confusing that the application was for lap, table and pole dancing yet the discussions in the meeting had been about burlesque: It seems to me that the application we are looking at is for lap dancing. I am concerned that with lap dancing they do attract large groups of people in hen and stag parties. I am not convinced about the level of planning that has gone into this application."

Detective Inspector Ian Winton told the meeting: I feel that by licensing premises like this we seek to normalise acts which make it okay to see women as sexual objects. What this does is show children that it is okay for adults to view women doing a sexual act. That is not a good role model for what it is we are expecting our young children to take on board as they become adults.

The licensing panel chose to refuse the application for Snug to vary its licence on the grounds of crime, disorder and public nuisance.