UK Sex Sells News

Bournemouth lap-dancing club Spearmint Rhino has been investigated amid allegations its dancers have been breaching no touch rules.

Licensing council employees visited the premises presumably undercover and say they witnessed several breaches of the council's miserable rules.

The conditions allegedly breached are those that forbid performers from sitting or straddling customers, placing both their feet on the seat, simulating a sexual act, intentionally touching another dancer and intentionally touching a customer.

Bournemouth council said it has been working with the premises since their visit in June to resolve the issues. The club's sexual entertainment licence is currently up for renewal and it is expected officers will seek to add further conditions onto the licence.

Spearmint Rhino survived a licensing scare as councillors rejected calls to shut down its flagship venue.

Moralist neighbours had urged the Town Hall to turn down the club's bid to renew its sexual entertainment licence on the supposed grounds that the club caused late-night disturbance and no longer fitted into the changing character of Bloomsbury.

But Camden's licensing committee agreed to allow the club to keep operating, until next month at least. Only one month as it had taken 11 months for last year's licensing process to complete.

Labour ward councillor Rishi Madlani had called for the application to be thrown out in full, with the bollox claim that Spearmint Rhino's operations did not fit into a planned overhaul of the city centre/ entertainment area which will see millions of pounds of investment and changes to road layouts.

Lovehoney.co.uk asked what insights Jon Millward could discover hiding in their anonymised sales data from 4.5 million transactions in the last 10 years.

The average Lovehoney customer spends a little over six minutes perusing ten pages of the site. When they place an order, they spend ?35 . Men on average spend ?5.73 (19%) more per order than women. 1 in 5 customers chooses to pay extra for next day delivery. Men are a bit keener than women to get their packages the following day: 23% of male customers choose the speedy option, compared to 19% of women. Half of women and one-third of men who place an order with Lovehoney buy a vibrator.

...Read the full article

About 90% of people who filled out a Cheltenham borough council questionnaire said they do not believe it is acceptable to have a lap dancing club anywhere in Cheltenham.

The consultation was prompted partly by the level of public 'outrage' to an application to open a lap dancing club in Bath Road; an application which was granted by the borough council earlier this year.

The council's licensing staff will now meet to respond to the consultation results.

There were 174 responses to the sexual entertainment venue questionnaire also a petition advocating a ban received about 1,100 signatures.

Carmine Di Liso who runs Fantasy gentlemen's club in Bath Road said his club has received a very good reaction and has been completely trouble free. He said:

We have had no problem with the community. We have had local people criticise us before and they have come in and changed their minds.

Update: Calmer at the council's licensing committee meeting

11th September 2014. See article from gloucestershireecho.co.uk

Cheltenham Borough Council's influential licensing committee met and was asked to give the authority a steer on whether lap dancing clubs should be banned in the town.

A number of moves to do just that were defeated but committee members did eventually agree that sexual entertainment venue licences should not be granted to any clubs outside the town centre.

Meanwhile, they also agreed any applications to open such a club in the town centre should be considered on a case by case basis by the licensing committee and that no limit should be placed on the total number of the clubs allowed.

Councillor Andrew McKinlay, cabinet member for development and safety, pitched the idea for the zero limit for residential areas and case by case determination in the town centre to the committee. He questioned whether a blanket ban would even be legally possible. He said:

It makes much more sense to restrict potential sexual entertainment venues to the town centre area where you would expect other night time entertainment.

The committee was read a statement from Jaine Simner, Gloucestershire Constabulary's licensing manager:

I don't believe we or any other force have statistics that suggest that SEVs are responsible for or increase the likelihood of sexual offences.

It is my opinion that SEVs if well run like any other licensed premises cause us very little problem and are not known for crime and disorder.

The issue of setting a limit on the number of sexual entertainment licences granted in Cheltenham will be discussed by the borough council's cabinet on September 16.

An application to move Elegance stripclub from Granada Road, Southsea to Albert Road was turned down by Portsmouth City Council's planning committee.

But owner Paul Ojla said he would appeal the decision, saying it was made for the wrong reasons. He explained:

The decision seems to have been made on moral grounds rather than technical or legal grounds.

The councillors were all looking at the lap dancing side of it, but what they were forgetting was that downstairs was going to be a very upmarket bar.

Albert Road Traders' Association chairwoman Jenni Catlow said she was delighted with the decision. She crowed:

To have a business that's flaunting sexual activities wouldn't be very good for the road.

This sort of business would bring people seeking to have a good time in the wrong way to Albert Road, and it countermands everything we're trying to achieve.

Councillor Michael Andrewes said he collected a 350-name petition against the proposal. He said:

It's good to see that common sense prevailed. It would have been totally inappropriate for the street.

Ghostbusters have been called to a Preston bar after spooky goings on became too much for the staff at Perfect 10s .

Manager Steph Watson called Leyland mediums Sixth Sense Ghosthunters to the Lune Street lap-dancing bar after experiencing a few bumps in the night as she set up for the bar's evening entertainment. Steph says she has even experienced an eerie sighting loitering in the upstairs bar:

Before I turned the lights on, I could feel someone behind me, so I turned around and there was a man sat in the booth opposite the ladies' toilets. I did a double take because I couldn't believe it. I think I went into shock.

One of the mediums came in and went straight over to the exact spot and said he could feel a man's presence there.

The Ann Summers website is be updated to create what it hopes is a much more personal and convenient interactions between consumers and the brand.

Using a combination of data points, from visitor opinion to visitor behaviour, the retailer aims to deliver personalisation in a way that impresses online visitors rather than creeps them out.

For example, a recent test segmented apparel buyers alongside those who had purchased sex toys that it concluded were shy and served them offers on returns and discreet deliveries respectively from the homepage. It delivered an increase in conversions the business claims, while it has also run tests based on customer browsing history, gender, sexuality and lifestyle data.

Previously, personalisation on the site came in the guise of content matched to the highest selling and recommended items to peoples searches, similar to how Amazon targets shoppers.

Scarborough Borough Council's Licensing Committee has refused an application for a sexual entertainment venue (SEV) licence at Chic Bar in Scarborough.

The application for the venue on the first floor of the bar, referred to as Little Black Book , was unanimously refused on the basis that the layout and character of the premises was inappropriate for use as a SEV as set out in the application.

The committee cited the lack of central location for facilities for dancers as one of the reasons for refusal as areas spread across the premises would mean dancers regularly having to move from place to place via parts of the building open to members of the public. Other reasons included lack of a smoking area for customers and staff, which would mean dancers having to stand with the public in the alleyway outside the premises in order to smoke, and the inappropriate location of toilets for customers, which would result in female (and sometimes male) customers having to use a restricted staircase under supervision or leave the premises in order to re-enter the premises on the ground

99 representations from members of the public were made against the application but the majority of these did not demonstrate any statutory grounds for refusal under the formal licensing process and therefore the committee could not take these into account when reaching its decision.

The applicant now has 21 days to appeal.

The trailer of the upcoming erotic film Fifty Shades of Grey is hopefully set to spark a 1 million pound boom in the UK sex toy industry.

The Daily Star reported that the film will play in generating estimated average sex toy sales of 2 pound per adult over the course of the next year.

Lovehoney, who is the official supplier of all Fifty Shades sex toy merchandise, will be releasing a new range of toys to tie in with the movie which is out on Valentine's Day and are expecting a surge in sales and a bondage bonanza .

A table dancing licence has been awarded to a new table dancing venue for York. It will be located above Tokyo Nightclub at 3 Toft Green.

York Council had received 11 letters of objection including two from nearby hotels. York's Feminist Network had also campaigned against the venue.

Representatives for both the Hampton by Hilton Hotel on Toft Green and Safestay Tourist Hostel on Micklegate have written to the council about fears that allowing a sexual entertainment venue to open above Tokyo nightclub will somehow damage the city's tourist trade.

The plans have also attracted objections from York Feminist Network concerned that it would operate close to York's only other strip club, and near several sensitive venues like women's refuges, schools, nurseries, community centres.

A total of 14 formal objections have been sent to Northampton Borough Council protesting against the renewal of Urban Tiger's sexual entertainment licence.

A total of four responses have been sent in support of the application and Northamptonshire Police has not submitted any objection to the licence renewal.

Letters have whinged about advertising and the location in the vicinity of a schoolwear shop, Games Workshop, a Jesus Centre, women's hairdressers, a residential area and a bus stop.

However, the general manager of Urban Tiger said the objections had come as part of an orchestrated campaign by a small group of individuals ideologically opposed to the existence of lap-dancing venues. Presumably he is referring to the campaign group Object who orchestrated a similar campaign at the previous licence renewal.

The manager said there had been no crime incidents related to Urban Tiger in the past 12 months.

Liverpool Council has approved plans for a straight table-dancing club in the city's gay quarter. The venue, which is to be called Paradise and will reportedly have a gay manager, obtained permission to open on Stanley Street, Liverpool's official gay quarter.

Members of the LGBT community said that a venue aimed at straight men was wrong for the area, was likely to lead to an increase in hate crimes, and would undermine the entire point of having a gay quarter.

Lawyers acting for the venue rejected these claims. They pointed out that, if a gay bar wishing to open in an area where most venues catered for straight people, such objections would not be tolerated.

The new venue will bring the number of sexual entertainment venues in Liverpool city centre up to its arbitrary council-determined limit of eight.

Birmingham councillors have arbitrarily rejected plans for a table dancing club on Birmingham's Broad Street, claiming it would have been one sex establishment too many.

Bosses at Eutony Ltd saw an application to open the venue, which would have been called Paradise, turned down for the second time.

Members of the Licensing and Public Protection Committee have now issued 'reasons' for refusal, claiming a fourth club along the street would alter the family orientated character of the Golden Mile. [As if Birmingham's binge drinking street could be called a family orientated area?]

Broad Street already has three lapdancing bars, the Rocket Club, Cyclone and Legs 11, and countless bars for young people who enjoy hitting town on Friday and Saturday nights.

Committee chairman Barbara Dring spouted:

The committee accepted the clustering of a further sexual entertainment venue would be a powerful indication that the Broad Street area could become or come to be perceived as an adults' only locality within the city, this was considered inappropriate.

The committee also concluded a further sexual entertainment venue -- effectively a fourth in Broad Street -- would be inappropriate with the developing family and cultural character of the locality. A fourth sexual entertainment venue in this locality would be one sex establishment too many.