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licence is rescinded.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.
