Lap Dancing in Recession

Lap dancing is booming even as Britain struggles not to go bust.

Hard-up Brits are buying food from cut-price supermarkets and staying in thanks to the credit crunch. But, despite the financial doom and gloom, dance clubs are flourishing.

And many canny Brit babes are quitting jobs such as nursing, teaching and even law work to become lap dancers, where the average wage is £50,000.

There are currently 150 official lap dancing clubs and 300 places which put on some form of sexy entertainment.

About 70 or 80 girls will work in one club, with all on duty at peak times. Added to the number of strippers working in British pubs, it means up to 25,000 women are working as lap dancers.

Birmingham is the country's lap dancing capital with about 12 clubs while London is second with 10.

A spokesman for the adult entertainment branch of the GMB union reckons more women are working as lap dancers than ever before thanks to the wages. She says: Men still want to treat themselves. It's the same phenomenon as women who buy a Chanel lipstick because they can't afford the handbag. They want a taste of the high life. It's the same with men – they might be struggling but need something to cheer themselves up.

Kate Nicholls, secretary of the Lap Dancing Association, says: Across the whole of the hospitality industry business is down but lap dancing clubs are bucking the trend. We're not suffering as much as some. Some nightclubs are resorting to desperate tactics such as 80p shots to get people in. But in our clubs spending is holding up.

...BUT

Based on article from sundaymercury.net

A Birmingham lap dance company has gone BUST – the latest victim of the worldwide cash crisis. Plans to open a three-storey stripping superclub in the city have been abandoned after The Provocative Group (Birmingham) Limited went into administration.

The company had intended to expand its string of Wildcats venues by opening up in a building previously used by Spearmint Rhino on John Bright Street.

Just two months ago, it was offering free VIP tickets to see top glamour model Lucy Pinder on the opening night of the new club. The invitation read: We have just launched our lapdancing superclub Wildcats in Birmingham. For all you Lucy Pinder fans out there, you're in luck as she's going to be spending the evening with us.

Wildcats, which had venues across the country was said to be Britain's biggest lapdancing club chain. It is not yet clear exactly why the club's finances have collapsed.

A spokesman for Begbies Traynor, the adminstrators for the Provocative Group, said: There are no job losses in Birmingham because the club never actually opened. The building has been repossessed by the landlord.

A former lap dancing club in Walsall will be turned back into a traditional boozer. The historic Green Dragon pub in High Street was transformed into a lap dancing club in 2006.

The venue, which was called the Cobralounge, flopped and now its new owners have bought it. They were today given the go-ahead to re-open it as a traditional watering hole by the licensing sub-comittee at Walsall Council.

There was the predictable nutter 'fury' when its owners Midland UK Leisure reopened it as a strip joint. The move angered religious nutters, who pointed out that the venue was once used as a place of worship in the early 1800s.

The credit crunch is already starting to bite at the industry, early in October the Wildcats group which had 8 clubs mainly in the north of England went into administration.

It's understood that former MD Matt Haycox has bought the Leeds and Harrogate clubs off the receivers and that most of the others are now shut and on the market.

I understand also that as well as Wildcats Aphrodite's in Blackpool has also closed and that several other clubs in that run down resort are closed or close to closing.

Also closed are Walsall's “Cobra Lounge” club which is being converted back into a traditional pub and the UK's first club “Route 66” in Park Royal.

An attempt to open a club in Tunbridge Wells has also been abandoned for the moment.

The first Lap Dancing Association awards night were held at For Your Eyes Only on the 15th of October.

The performer of the year  was won by Faye representing the new Kensington club, Kensington Suite.

The LDA small club of the year was Blue Velvet from Newcastle, medium sized was Bandit Queen of Dudley, and large club was Spearmint at Tottenham Court Rd.

A Southampton strip club has called time on topless dancing in a bid to beat the recession.

Aqua Lounge in Above Bar, formerly known as Poletrixx, is to lose its lap dancers and focus more on events and live entertainment.

Owner Victoria Andrews said the move has been planned for a while with the recession and proposed new laws which could result in people in the community having a say where lap dancing venues are allowed to operate.

We have been here for around ten years now and I think that has almost been a miracle, she said: With new legislation being proposed it seemed like the right time for a change. I only want to do this if I can control it and not be told what we can and can’t do.

Victoria also said that takings had dropped in the independent city centre venue through the recession: We have still been getting the same number of people in but they just haven’t been spending as much money and it has been noticeable. And it was the closure of The Grapes, such an iconic pub for Southampton, that was a bit of a wake-up call.

Update: Too Risky

25th April 2009 See article from eastbourneherald.co.uk

A lap dancing club in Eastbourne has closed, with its owner blaming the recession for its demise.

Risky's, which was in the basement of American-themed bar Minnesota Jax in Seaside Road, closed its doors on March 14.

Bar owner Darren Bush said the club had been going for two years but had been hit by the economic downturn.

A property company has been appointed to sell the North East nightspots belonging to Absolute Leisure, which went into receivership last week, putting more than 50 jobs at risk.

It will oversee the sale of Newcastle-based Absolute’s two Purple Door lap dancing clubs in Kingston upon Hull and Doncaster. Joint administrator Gerald Krasner from Begbies Traynor, said: The directors closed the [Purple Door] clubs in Kingston upon Hull on Thursday night, however the Doncaster club is continuing to trade. We are confident of finding buyers for the sites.

The Purple Door clubs were run by Lookchart Ltd, which is part of the Absolute Leisure group.

A lap dancing club in Eastbourne has been shut down. Bailiffs entered Indigo Redd in Seaside Road with police officers and a man was arrested but later released without charge.

The premises were boarded up and a notice of forfeiture plastered on the entrances warning people that landlord Hurst Springs Holdings Limited had taken possession of the building. The notice addressed to Paul David Jones and Liza-Jane Jones informed them that their lease dated June 10, 2008 was forfeited.

Hours after the closure, Eastbourne Borough Council's licensing sub-committee reconvened to hear the second stage of a hearing of an application by Indigo Redd to open 24 hours a day seven days a week.

The sub-committee members heard evidence from the council's noise team, the planning department and Sussex Police as well as residents regarding the issues of crime, disorder, noise and nuisance. A council spokesman said, The application was refused on the grounds that an extension of hours would undermine the licensing objectives relating to crime and disorder and the prevention of nuisance. The sub-committee refused the application, having heard insufficient evidence to depart from its cumulative impact policy.