High Court ruling on Sex Entertainment Venues

[seventy3]

STRIP CLUB LICENSING CURBED AFTER COURT RULES WIDER HARM TO WOMEN AND GIRLS COULD NOT BE IGNORED

The High Court has ruled today that Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council’s policy of having no limit on the number of strip clubs is unlawful. The Court decided that the Council was wrong to ignore concerns that strip clubs contribute to the abuse, harassment and violence against women and girls in society.

Following a merger of the three Council districts in 2019, a consultation was launched by BCP to determine the number of strip clubs it could licence. A high number of responses to the consultation expressed serious concerns that strip clubs impact negatively on attitudes towards, and treatment of, women and girls by contributing to a culture in which they are abused, harassed and subjected to sex-based violence. The council explicitly ignored any concerns that focused on these societal harms, dismissing them as ‘moral objections’. Following this, on 9 November 2022, the Council adopted a licensing policy that allowed for an unlimited number of strip clubs.

Our client, Clare (not her real name) a survivor of domestic and sexual abuse, challenged the policy by Judicial Review. On 3 February 2023, the High Court held that the Council had “consistently downplayed and/or sidelined” concerns around the harms caused to women and girls in society, and should have taken them into account when considering its policy. The Court also decided that the Council’s equalities assessments failed to sufficiently consider the need to tackle discrimination against women or the requirement for public bodies to have due regard to “foster good relations between men and women”. BCP had therefore failed to comply with its duties under the Equality Act.

The Court quashed the decision to adopt the policy.

Clare said

“I am glad that the Judge has looked at what happened and thought about the impact on women and girls. In a democratic society, our concerns should not have been ignored”.
Clare was represented by Sasha Rozansky of Deighton Pierce Glynn and by Jessica Boyd KC of Blackstone Chambers. The full judgment is available here.

dpglaw.co.uk/strip-club-licensing-curbed-after-court-rules-wider-harm-to-women-and-girls-could-not-be-ignored/

That is reassuring news. Can we hope that sanity is returning, and all the instances were decisions were made based on impact assessments that completely ignored evidence of negative impacts on women and girls will be brought to light, and reversed?

Wow, that's a brilliant result. It's shit that Clare had to go to court to force this to be reconsidered, and I am glad she was able to push through and get this outcome. Brava Clare.

That is good to hear. Well done to those who fought for it.

a consultation was launched by BCP to determine the number of strip clubs it could licence. A high number of responses to the consultation expressed serious concerns that strip clubs impact negatively on attitudes towards, and treatment of, women and girls by contributing to a culture in which they are abused, harassed and subjected to sex-based violence.

So often consultations that result in a high number of negative responses are ignored or dismissed, explained away.

This is a great result and well done Clare pushing on with it. 💪

Thank you Clare.

Fantastic news.

I am just stunned by how far backwards we seem to have slipped when a council can do this:
The council explicitly ignored any concerns that focused on [strip clubs contributing to a culture in which women and girls are abused, harassed and subjected to sex-based violence], dismissing them as ‘moral objections’.

How have we got to this place where, despite so many women elected to government, WAWGs is dismissed as a “moral objection”?

*VAWG

I agree, Number, it is extremely frustrating. The 'moral objection' is such a weak non-argument - I have a moral objection to slavery. Yet it's puritanical to object to the abuse and exploitation of women and an institution that props up sex slavery. 🙄

I could be wrong but on this issue I don't think we have fallen backwards; sex industry abolitionists were mocked in the 80s. Rather we've made no progress whilst the culture has become much more pornified. The male sex right lives on.

This is really interesting. When sexual entertainment venue licensing was introduced back in 2010 the aim was, apparently, to give people more ability to have a say about venues like that in their own area but under the legislation the reasons to object were very narrow and the government guidance explicitly stated that objections on a purely moral basis were not valid and shouldn’t be used as a reason to refuse.

I worked with a local authority who saw it as an opportunity to improve the operation of that type of venue; you could impose conditions that it was felt would protect women who worked there and the local community.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/03/high-court-overrules-bournemouths-unlimited-strip-club-policy

The minutes for the meeting where the council approved the policy are here (relevant item is 122a):
democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=284&MID=4810#AI8405

There are a bunch of linked documents, including minutes of the Licensing Committee meeting that considered the policy. A number of (mainly female) councilors raised the point that the objections on the basis of the impact on women as a class shouldn’t be dismissed as moral objections at that meeting. The lawyer for the council basically contended it was all fine because they’d gone through the motions done an EIA. There’s a bunch of other relevant discussion in it too:
democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=7845

To those who took this case to court: take a bow. I salute you.

This is great news!

Besides anything else, the more clubs there are in a single area the less and less money the girls groomed into doing it actually make from dancing and the more at risk they are of progressing to full on prostitution.

So even if the council refuses to look at the impact on women and girls generally, you’d hope they’d look at the impact on these very young women specifically.

Thank you ‘Clare’ and everyone who took this to court.

“that strip clubs contribute to the abuse, harassment and violence against women and girls in society”

It blows my mind that this is even up for debate. Thank you to Clare et al for challenging this, for standing up not only for some of the most vulnerable women and girls in society, but for all of us.

Very impressive. Presumably it just goes back to the council to take the decision again?