UK Sex Shop News

A Belfast businessman is planning a fresh bid to open the city's first legal sex shop - in the Boucher Road area.

Brian Hope has withdrawn his application with Belfast City Council for an outlet at Gresham Street in the city centre. Now it can be revealed he has been viewing alternative locations around Boucher Road.

There has only been one licence granted for a sex shop in Northern Ireland. That was given by Newtownabbey Borough Council in 2007 for premises in Central Park industrial estate in Mallusk.

A vote by the council in November to stand by its morality decision of 2003 and not allow any licensed sex shops on Gresham Street resulted in a withdrawal of the licence application.

However, an official advised the committee that Hope was likely to apply again in the new year for a different location and was viewing premises at Boucher Road, amongst others.

Hope said that he had financial backers in England that would allow him to open a three-storey business and employ five staff.

When plans for an Ann Summers shop on O'Connell Street first came to light, chief executive Jacqueline Gold got a bullet in the post. How times have changed

It's been 15 years since the Ann Summers pleasure emporium opened its doors in Dublin. Has the peddling of chocolate willies, vibrators, lingerie and lubes done any damage to the nation's place in the hearts or the minds of its people or its visitors? Has the sky fallen in? The tourists still come, it seems. Irish people still go about their business. Sex still happens. Or it doesn't, depending on how lucky you are.

...Read the full article

No sex shops please, we're Irish!

See also article from comeheretome.com

A brief look at the history of Dublin's sex shops, taking in some of the hysteria and protest that existed around such shops on the island well into the late 1990s. It's an interesting story, in many ways surprising, looking at shops which today dot the city.

...Read the full article

An application for a sex shop licence in Sheffield has been rejected. A council licensing committee decided that premises called The Naughty Company, on Chesterfield Road near Valley Road, would be somehow unsuitable for the area.

The usual bollox 'concerns' were raised about the location being near a bus stop and on the route of schoolchildren as well as part of a district with signs of regeneration.

After the verdict, the applicant said he would appeal, questioning the grounds for refusal.

There were 24 public objections to the application, and nine objectors spoke against it before the decision was taken. One protester complained: I would find it offensive and degrading as a woman to have to pass this shop regularly.

Applicant Paul Darker said he was disappointed at the decision, having had a sex establishment in the area back in 2012 (A simply Pleasure shop?).

Limerick Council has been a little red faced after spending EUR90,000 in a failed attempt to sex down a city centre site.

The council gave the money as a goodbye payment to the operator of the Utopia adult sex shop after the local authority paid EUR12.5m for the Opera Centre site where the shop was located. The site is the focus of a council scheme to rebuild the city centre.

The shop did not fit in with the council's plans for the area and the adult store closed last month, when the council paid EUR90,000 to the operator.

But, within days, the business moved across to the other side of Ellen St and resumed trading.

One city council source said: There are a lot of red faces on how big money was spent to little avail.

At Utopia, a shop assistant said business was very good

Belfast City Council is set to reject two applications for sex shops in the city centre.

A businessman who once took his fight for a sex shop licence to the House of Lords had submitted a fresh application for Miss Behavin' on Gresham Street. A second application for a shop called Misstique in the same area has also been submitted.

However, Belfast City Council seems likely to reject both applications. A meeting of the council's morality committee came up with the lame excuse that Gresham Street is supposedly to be regenerated under the Future Belfast plans.

There are a number of unlicensed sex shops currently operating in the Gresham Street area, however committee members were told last week that two on Smithfield Square North have closed recently following council enforcement action.

The final decision will be taken at a meeting of the full council next Monday.

SDLP councillor Pat McCarthy said he believed the committee would be open to hearing an application for such a shop in a different location, one outside the main city centre.

There has only been one sex shop granted a licence in Northern Ireland, in an industrial estate in Mallusk. Newtownabbey Borough Council allowed that licence in 2006.

Update: Morality Refuseniks

4th November 2014.  See  article from  belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Belfast City Council has said no to licensed sex shops on a city centre street. There are currently four such establishments which operate without a licence in the Gresham Street area, including MissBehavin.

The licensing committee heard last month that Gresham Street is located within the city's primary retail core, and that it is home to a licensed premises, a butcher's and a children's clothing shop. It also heard that the street is included in a number of renovation initiatives.

Enforcement action has been taken against both applicants over operating sex shops without a licence. The committee claimed that the appropriate number of sex establishments in the Gresham Street locality remain as nil .

This recommendation of that committee meeting was passed at last night's council meeting without comment.

The Home Office has told PinkNews that it's too early to say if further restrictions are to be placed on the use of poppers, following the publication of a report into legal highs.

The report has called for a blanket ban on all brain-altering drugs. The government said it will consider legislation introduced in Ireland four years ago that bans the sale of all psychoactive substances but exempts some, such as alcohol and tobacco.

It is illegal to sell amyl nitrite (poppers) for human consumption in the UK but they are often sold in sex shops and gay venues as air fresheners .

Poppers are the second most commonly used drug by gay and bi men, and 25 times more common than amongst straight men.

Thurrock Council's licensing sub-committee have rejected the sex shop licence renewal for the Adult Store in Grays, Essex.

The committee considered a list of offences committed by the store's manager - including displaying for sale hundreds of sex DVDs that were not licensed and hazardous sex-enhancing products that were not properly labelled.

The store's former manager, Darren Shrubb admitted to a string of breaches of the rules and accepted all the blame for the problems. However the committee did not accept that the store owner, Bradley Rose, did not know what was going on at the premises.

The committee heard that in December 2013 a joint visit to the store by Thurrock Council's licensing team, Trading Standards Officers and police, identified a number of offences. These included wrongly classified sex videos and others that were not licensed or approved by the BBFC. Other issues included incorrectly labelled tonics and pills that purported to increase sexual desire and wrongly labelled hazardous chemical products - known as poppers.

The committee heard follow up visits, including a covert operation in January, found problems were not being addressed and in May this year Trading Standards officers returned to the premises and seized 631 DVDs, 570 which were found to be not classified and there were labelling issues with hundreds of other DVDs.

The committee said in a statement:

The sub-committee view the breaches as serious and do not accept as an explanation that a lack of knowledge of the breach of that order excuses his obligations as a licence holder. The continued involvement of Mr Shrubb with the business further calls into question the applicant's judgement. For these reasons the sub-committee are not satisfied that adding conditions to the licence will prevent further issues and for the above reasons decline the application to renew the licence.

Rose has 28 days to appeal against the decision.