Lap Dancing in Stoke

Plans to open a lap-dancing club next to a church have been held up after councillors raised concerns about the monitoring of private booths.

Chris Clegg wants to open Paradise Gentleman's Club in Hope Street, Hanley, from noon to 5.30am every day.

Clegg applied for a licence for the venue after shutting down the 007 Gentleman's Club in Bryan Street several months ago. Up to £250,000 will be spent on transforming the former Fusion Bar which would create up to 14 jobs if plans get the go-ahead.

But members of Stoke-on-Trent City Council's licensing sub-committee deferred the application to allow a site visit to take place. Committee chairman councillor Joy Garner said she was concerned about how the rule that customers must stay at least 12 inches away from dancers would be enforced in the club's private booths.

Brian Wain, of Trentham-based Trent Licensing Consultants, who represented Clegg, told the meeting: There will be CCTV cameras inside and outside the club but not in any of the private booths.

Nutters of the Bethel Evangelical Church have predictably vowed to stop the club opening next door. Church trustee Neville Gould said: We run a Sunday School and a Thursday night club for young children at the church. We just don't want this kind of thing going on next door.

Carl Kirkham, who is also a trustee of the church, added: If a licence for a lap dancing club is granted it will result in increased noise and encourage inappropriate behaviour outside the premises.

Stoke on Trent's latest lap-dancing club is to open its doors later this year - next door to a church.

Councillors approved plans for the Paradise Gentleman's Club, in Hope Street, Hanley, despite protests from nutters of the neighbouring Bethel Evangelical Church.

Businessman Chris Clegg, former owner of the Zanzibar nightclub in Newcastle, is to invest up to £200,000 in revamping the former Fusion Bar in an overhaul that will create around 10 jobs. Dancers working in the venue will be self employed, meaning the 10 roles on offer are for bar staff, management, and security.

Neville Gould, trustee of Bethel Evangelical Church, said: It's totally incompatible to have a lap-dancing club next to a church. Would you let your children or grandchildren go to a youth club next to a lap-dancing club? We would have to think about ending the club.

Gould added: We noticed an increase in problems after Bar 360 had a lap-dancing licence and those problems have not gone away and I fear the problems will increase again. We have experience of the problems that lap-dancing clubs result in.

There are four other premises in the Potteries with lap-dancing licences - ST1 and His And Hers, both located on Trinity Street in the city centre; Heaven and Hell in Burslem, which is yet to open, and 007 Gentleman's Club which is currently closed. Lace Gentleman's Club in Newcastle has been operating since 2007.