Lap Dancing in Bristol

Nutters in Bristol's Old Market have launched a campaign to stop permission being given for a lap dancing club in West Street.

They have signed a petition to object against planning consent for the premises near the corner with Waterloo Street.

Councillors will decide at a planning committee on Tuesday whether to give permission.

Resident Janet Sheek said: It's wholly inappropriate to have a lap dancing club in a residential area and in a high street. If the city council wants this, then they should provide an entertainment park somewhere else where people would have to drive to and drive away from. There are a lot of families that live around here now and parents should not have to explain to children, who would have to walk past this place on their way to school, what goes on inside. How can you expect anyone to pop out for a pint of milk at night when horny and intoxicated young men are roaming around on the street. It's wrong.

Ches Chesney, secretary of the Old Market Community Association, said the number of people living in the area had more than doubled in the past eight years. It's a residential area and should be considered in those terms, he said. His petition currently has about 300 names.

Campaigner Trish Davidson, founder of the website Unchosen which fights human trafficking, said lap dancing clubs should be illegal. She said: How can we get across to young men on stag dos and businessmen that this is not a good way to entertain themselves and that women suffer from their growing need to go to these clubs. Without demand, there would be no successful clubs.

The application, by Essie Zadeh, who is understood to run The Olive Tree bar at 90 West Street, is for a change of use to turn the former shop at 42-44 West Street, into a restaurant and wine bar by day and a lap dancing club at night.

Planning officers are recommending approval and say in a report to councillors that the application meets with planning guidelines. They said licensing laws, not planning regulations, deal with public safety, prevention of crime and disorder and public nuisance, and protection of children. The report says: The licensing process allows for a raft of additional, far more detailed conditions to be attached that regulate such drinking and entertainment activities on an ongoing basis until the licence is rescinded.

Zadeh said he saw no harm in setting up the lap dancing club. There are 52 empty shops in the street at the moment. This will help to improve its prosperity. It's a commercial street, not residential.

Update: Refused on Moral Grounds

Based on article from thisisbristol.co.uk

Plans for the lap dancing club were turned down. The decision by councillors to refuse consent came after an astonishing turn of events at a planning committee meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, the chairman, Councillor Alex Woodman (Lib Dem, Cabot) had spelt out to the campaigners that the application could not be refused on moral grounds – they could only consider the planning issues.

Planning officers told the committee there were no planning policy grounds to refuse permission. But as the debate wore on, it emerged councillors were against the plan and their only difficulty was to find the grounds to turn it down.

The chairman moved refusal, saying: I would rather this go to appeal and tested rather than simply nodding it through. The councillors agreed by 5-2 votes to refuse on the bollox grounds that the plan failed to contribute to the vitality of Old Market and contribute to its regeneration.

The applicant, Old Market businessman Essie Zadeh who runs the Olive Tree mediterranean bar in West Street and who attended the meeting said afterwards he would definitely appeal the decision.

The appeal might take some months to complete by which time a new Crime Bill is likely to have been passed which will give local authorities tougher powers over lap-dancing clubs.

The planning appeal for a new lap dancing club in Bristol's Old Market has been dismissed.

The club was proposed by businessman Essie Zadeh at 42-44 West Street, but was rejected by the city council's planning committee last December.

The empty premises would have been made into a licensed café during the day and a lap dancing club at night.

But the councillors agreed 5-2 to refuse on the grounds the plan failed to contribute to the vitality of Old Market and contribute to its regeneration.

There was an appeal against that decision, but that has now been rejected by planning inspector Jill Kingaby.

She said: There is clearly a high level of local opposition to the current proposal for a lap dancing club. It seems to me that the proposal would not contribute to building a positive and attractive image introducing uses of general public interest or service to West Street as sought in saved Local Plan Policies CC1 and S6.

Labour councillor for the Lawrence Hill ward, Brenda Hugill, said: This is a victory for common sense. We must not let this area descend in a Soho sex industry ghetto, especially now that families are moving into the area. She added: We must keep fighting to keep the area safe for all.