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Lap-dance licences for a shake-up
• ON Saturday July 26 a group of people took to Camden High Street and gathered over 100 signatures on their petition to support the relicensing of lap-dancing clubs in Camden.
Currently, a legal loophole means that lap-dance clubs share the same licence as cafés or restaurants. Yet they offer entertainment which is clearly more akin to that of sex cinemas or peep shows. The loophole has allowed lap-dance clubs to open more or less anywhere they choose and has made it very difficult for councils or communities to have a say in this.
For example, if a lap-dance club were to open near my workplace I would have no say in the licensing process unless I also happened to live within 100 to 200 metres of the proposed venue. However, you do not have to live on the doorstep of a lap-dance club to be affected by it – they normalise seeing women as sex objects, undermine gender equality and can create “no-go” areas for women. This affects us all, women and men.
For these reasons I welcome the government’s consultation with local councils on the issue, including the proposal to close the loophole and recategorise lap-dance clubs as sex encounter establishments – venues where visual entertainment for sexual stimulation takes place.
This will give our local council the same licensing powers as apply to sex shops, peep shows and sex cinemas and will give our community more of a say in deciding how many, and where, lap-dance clubs are licensed in our area.
I therefore urge our local council to use the consultation to call for recategorisation of lap-dance clubs on our behalf.
ALISON DEAR
Address supplied
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