No new lap-dancing clubs until regulations are in place

The term ‘lap dancing club’ refers to venues where live entertainment is provided for the purposes of sexual stimulation of the customers. This includes routines referred to as lap dancing, table dancing, pole dancing, erotic dancing, stripping, and striptease.

Normally performers pay to be able to sell their services, and have to compete for customers. This leads to risk taking and price-cutting. Lap dancing clubs have grown from the first one in 1995 to at least 300 in the UK.

Norwich City council has agreed to adopt powers under The Policing and Crime Act 2009, to licence lap dancing clubs as Sexual Entertainment Venues to ensure local communities have a greater say in the licensing process.

Meanwhile SEVs require only a premises license - like a cafe - and there is a high risk of clubs starting in numbers before the regulations are put in place, undermining local democracy and creating facts on the ground that are hard to change.

There are reasons to believe that the 'industry' is associated with trafficking, with no-go areas for women, with unhealthy and inequitable changes in relationships between women and men, and that this is not confined to people using or working in the trade.