Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member Development and Safety

The Mayor referred members to the process for dealing with petitions at Council which had been circulated with the agenda.  Before he invited the petition organiser to address Council, the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer offered clarification as to the decision making process in relation to this issue.  She advised that Cabinet would consider a recommendation in September and make onward recommendations to Council in October.

As petition organiser, Captain Steve Smith, presented the petition;

“We the undersigned, petition the Council to;

• Issue no further Sexual Entertainment Licenses (SEVs) in Cheltenham
• Note our objection to the granting of a license to operate a permanent lap dancing club in the former Voodoo Lounge on the Bath Road
• Note that we want our town to be free of sexual entertainment venues, such as lap and pole dancing clubs and therefore set a NIL Policy for SEVs in the future.”

A copy of his statement was circulated to members and is attached at Appendix 1.

In his statement, he reminded members that there had been an unprecedented number of objections to granting the licence referred to in the petition. The Licensing Committee appeared to have granted the licence based on their understanding that there was no evidence to support the concerns of the objectors. These centred on the risk that sexually charged males coming out of the lap dancing club would be more likely to commit sexual assaults in the vicinity. The committee had been specifically advised at the meeting that there was no such evidence. In his view this was untrue and a lot of scientific research had been done, mainly in London, which clearly showed that such incidents would increase. On that basis he urged members to support the petition.

In response to a query from a member of the Licensing Committee, the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer confirmed that members of the committee were permitted and entitled to participate in the debate as they were entitled to represent their views in all parts of the democratic process. 

Louis Krog, Business and Support Team Leader, gave the following answers to questions from members relating to the covering report;

• It was the activity itself that was licensable under the policy and as such the policy was gender neutral.
• Should a zero tolerance policy be adopted, there will be a presumption against the grant of the renewal, at the point at which any existing licences were up for renewal.  It was important that members understood that the Licensing Committee had powers of discretion to deviate from any such policy and/or advice. 
• Despite having an application granted in February 2014, the sexual entertainment venue on Bath Road, now known as Fantasy, had only been open for a few weeks.  Having spoken to the Police Licensing Officer, he had reported that there had only been one incident during this time which related to crime and disorder.
• A statutory exemption exists whereby any premises can offer sexual entertainment provided it lasts no longer  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10