Lap-dance bars: 'Owners say they are picked on unfairly'

Published on Monday 19 April 2010 09:56

THE call by MSP Sandra White for tougher legislation to control the spread and activities of lap-dance bars is not a new one but as the whole issue seems historically to be fraught with legal difficulties she will have a tough task on her hands.

Concern over such establishments has existed for more than a decade. And despite reservations being expressed by councils – including Edinburgh – the police and even parliamentarians, little has been done to change the way they operate other than to require them to seek an entertainment licence rather than one just covering the sale of alcohol.

To date, parliament has been relatively happy to wash its hands over regulating such establishments, trying instead to push local authorities into using local by-laws to restrict them. As long ago as 2004 Edinburgh asked the Executive to assume responsibility for controlling them by including legislation in the Civic Government Scotland Act – but ministers declined to do so.

The best concession that the city has been able to obtain from their owners is to ask them to sign up to a voluntary code of conduct relating to the way they are run. But the main thrust of this has only been to protect the performers from exploitation.

Residents living around the Tollcross area – where six of the city's seven establishments are relatively closely grouped – have long claimed that over-provision in the area has led to trouble, particularly from groups of males on stag weekends.

The police share some of these worries but are in addition concerned that due to the cash payment system operated in most bars such establishments are ideal ventures for money laundering.

But these remain only suspicions.

But it is difficult to fathom why there is such a strong undercurrent of loathing for such bars. Most make clear that they are offering adult entertainment and few customers would enter the doors not knowing roughly what to expect.

Few new bars have opened up in recent years, suggesting that the market is already saturated, and the likelihood of more springing up in the same locality is relatively remote.

Lap-dance bar owners have long protested that they are being unfairly picked on – and they may have a point.

How can the council and the parliament justifiably seek to place curbs on scantily-clad girls dancing in bars when for years they have turned a blind eye to what goes on behind the doors of most city saunas which are little more than brothels.