 A
Brisbane swingers' club is boasting that it is the first in the country
to gain council approval and operate just like any other business.
With 600 couples on their membership list and council approval to keep
swinging, the owners of Couples International, Bryan and Leesa Horn,
could not be happier.
Now we're seen as a lifestyle choice not just as an underground
hidden culture that has been around since if not well before the 70s
until now, Mrs Horn told AM.
Earlier this year, the Brisbane City Council threatened to shut it down
because the building was zoned inappropriately. But Mr and Mrs Horn
lodged a re-zoning application: We did have objections from the moral
right. But the tone of the objection was about suggesting that child
molesters come here and that sort of thing, which is, I mean, who would
ever know frankly.
Councillor Helen Abrahams says the majority of submissions in the
planning application were in favour of the application and the building
has been re-zoned as a nightclub, which she says is the most appropriate
category the council had. She says council had to consider the
application purely as a zoning decision: Council cannot consider the
moral aspects of this application, and in fact the condition of
development clearly states that this is only for the purpose of the
building. It does not comment on the legality of whether a swingers'
club is lawful under state legislation.
Update:
Nutters Miffed
13th September 2008
Australian Christian Lobby Queensland Director Peter Earle said it was a
shame local councillors representlng local nutters were effectively
gagged when it came to controversial sex venues in their communities:
To gag councillors from discussing the social implications of such
activity and force them to approve these applications solely on town
planning grounds is ridiculous.
The Integrated Planning Act must be amended to give power back to
local [nutter] communities
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