Sex entertainment venue application for Urban Tiger in Northampton - please help

[JessinAvalon]

The Urban Tiger Lap Dancing Club Wellingborough Road Northampton NN1 4AA has submitted its application for a Sexual Entertainment Licence.

This is an existing club which has no conditions on its licence at all, and is now applying for a sexual entertainment licence under the new legislation.

Northampton has no active feminist/women's networks so it would be great to send in as many objections to this as possible, particularly if you live or work in Northampton.

Objections must be in by 11th January 2011 and can be sent by post to:


The Licensing Officer
Northampton Borough Council
Borough Solicitors Division
The Guildhall
St Giles Square
Northampton
NN1 1DE


or by email to [email protected]


Thanks everyone

[MrsClown]

I wish you all the best with this Jess. Can you tell me, how did you find out. Doncaster, where I live, has opted for the new SEV but I am having trouble finding out when the clubs apply for the new lic. Thanks. Let us know how it goes. Are there many people who will back you up. Have you contacted OBJECT, they may have some members in your area. They have brilliant template letters.

[JessinAvalon]

Hi Mrs Clown
Sorry to take so long to reply to you on this one.

I don't live in Northampton and have posted this on behalf of a member of Object (and a friend of mine) who does live there. I'm not sure how she found out about the application but I can ask her.

In the city where I live (the one blessed with the new Hooters), the SEV legislation will be adopted at the end of January. I'm not sure how they will be advertising the new applications then as I presume they won't be posted under the normal alcohol/premises licence applications list.

Any other Mumsnetters know?

[SkaterGrrrrl]

Hi there

In 2009 I along with other local residents managed to stop a lap dancing club from opening in our neighbourhood. We saved all our arguments and tactics on a website, which may be of help.

lapoff.ning.com/

Bets of luck opposing this venue!

[SkaterGrrrrl]

Our campaign blog:

lapoff.wordpress.com/

[JessinAvalon]

Hi Skatergrrrl
Thanks for this. I was a member of your campaign and remember the fight you had.

I'll pass it on to the person coordinating the campaign in Northampton.
JIA

[David51]

Jess

Some people would say you have no business complaining unless you actually live in the area affected. How would you respond to that?

[Chaotica]

David51 - I do live in the area, and I welcome all the help I can get. BTW Some people say that as a man you have no business complaining about women mobilizing against the degradation and sexual exploitation of other women. How do you respond to that?

[JessinAvalon]

@David51-How would I respond to that? I wouldn't. Too busy writing my objection to spend time answering disingenuous questions, I'm afraid.

@Chaotica-please keep us updated. And good luck!

[David51]

Jess

Why do you assume my question is 'disingenuous'? I am simply anticipating an objection that people tend to make when 'outsiders' intervene in local issues.

I entirely support your stand and would do the same if it was happening in my area. As a matter of fact I work just down the road from Spearmint Rhino 'gentlemens club' in central London and look forward to having my say when they next apply for a licence.


BTW (Chaotica) I dont think my gender disqualifies me from having an opinion on this issue, I would like to think weve got beyond that style of sexual politics

[Chaotica]

David51 - I would like to think so too, but I'm not sure that wading in with your question was particularly supportive. IMO the existence of such clubs is not a local issue, it is simply not the same as someone wanting to open a nightclub at the end of your street (or similar).

[JessinAvalon]

Apologies David - I read your question as more of a statement: that you didn't think I had any business complaining.

In response, my view is that I am a woman who visits Northampton occasionally. However, the presence of this club does impact on my movement in the town centre. I may not live there but it still causes me to alter my freedom of movement. I also find the advertising of the club offensive.

I also agree with Chaotica - that the presence of these clubs has a wider impact on how women are viewed all over the country.

The SEV legislation was intended to make it easier for people to have a say on the existence of these clubs and to remove the requirement to live in close proximity to them in order to be able to complain.

From the Council's perspective, they would hopefully be considering the impact on women everywhere - the advertising, the attitude that men who visit these clubs take with them when they leave. [I have had to sit in work and in the pub whilst men discuss the lap dancers they'd paid the weekend before to grind naked on their lap. That could have been in any city of the UK as stag weekends tend to happen away from the city of residence.]

There is also the impact on children to consider, the advertising, the freedom of women living, working and visiting the city to move around freely without feeling intimidated or being harrassed by drunk men fuelled with the power of having had their pick of women in a club.

I hope this answers your question and apologies again for my previous response.

[JessinAvalon]

Article in Northampton News about the SEV licence

[msrisotto]

David - that question is complete bollocks. If people didn't care about issues outside their own country, let alone their own county, we wouldn't be donating aid to poverty stricken countries or women suffering under taliban rule or homeless people or or or x infinitum. We have every responsibility to give a shit about people further out than our own street. Your contribution was not helpful.

[JeaninePattibone]

Has anyone considered the people who work in this establishment and stand to lose their livelihood if it is forced to close?

[JessinAvalon]

It doesn't have to close. It can still operate as a normal club as it would still have its alcohol licence and could attract men and women inside instead of just men. It just wouldn't be able to operate lapdancing.

WRT 'the livelihood', clubs typically employ bar staff, security staff etc but charge the women to work there - anything from £50 a night. The women then have to earn the money that evening, usually from private dances, in order to pay back the club and make a profit. It's not a particularly secure income and lap dancers have talked about actually owing money at the end of the night sometimes.

[JeaninePattibone]

Perhaps they could. It would most likely be less profitable as a regular bar/nightclub though. This is no big deal if you think that none of that profit filters down to the workers.

Perhaps the women would be better off working for min wage behind the bar or even on the dole. I really don't know, but I'd rather leave that choice up to them.

[JessinAvalon]

I don't think the industry is as lucrative for the dancers as is made out. For the club owners - definitely. They make, say, £50 a night from each girl who just walks through the door. At ten girls a night, say, for 5 nights a week, that's £2500 a week just from the girls who work there, and that's without taking into account the share of the tips/private dances that they take. Of course clubs want to keep operating when they're raking in cash like that from their own employees.

However, should the 'choices' of a few to work there take precedence over the choice of other women in the city to live and work without intimidation and harrassment? I think not.