There are currently three strip clubs in the city, and councillors have been warned that only allowing three licences could \u201cpush dancers further into the hands of possibly exploitative bosses during a cost of living crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
STV reported that the warning came in a letter sent on behalf of lap dancers in the capital to members of the council\u2019s regulatory committee. The committee is due to meet to agree the local authority\u2019s approach to regulating sexual entertainment venues (SEVs) after new powers to set up licensing schemes were handed down by Scottish Ministers. <\/p>\n
A previous Judicial Review, which cost the council over \u00a3200,000 in legal fees and expenses according to STV, found councillors were \u201cwrongly advised\u201d setting the maximum number of venues at zero \u201cwould not constitute a ban on SEVs\u201d. Lord Richardson ruled if they had been \u201cproperly advised\u201d then a different decision may have been taken. <\/p>\n
However it is not expected to pass the second time as the councillors on the regulatory committee against a nil cap now outnumber those in favour, following the last local election it is reported. Instead dancers are now urging elected members against setting the cap.<\/p>\n
In a letter to regulatory committee members ahead of next week\u2019s meeting, Sex Workers Union (SWU) \u2018on behalf of dancers in Edinburgh\u2019 said:<\/p>\n
\u201cCreating a monopoly by capping the number of SEV licences at three will concentrate all of the Edinburgh industry within three businesses. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cA councillor-imposed monopoly will give the current clubs no incentive to improve conditions as dancers are left with no alternative. With no new innovative businesses with better working conditions, dancers who wish to run their own co-operative nights without bosses will also not be able to. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPushing dancers further into the hands of possibly exploitative bosses during a cost of living crisis goes directly against Edinburgh City Council\u2019s duty of care for their constituents.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n In response officials said setting the cap at the number of existing clubs \u201cmay not be a form of indirect discrimination\u201d but urged councillors to consider it \u201cas a potential issue\u201d. <\/p>\n A report going to the committee said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe intention would be to inspect and appropriately monitor any licensed premises and therefore this may address to some extent the concerns about maintenance of standards. If concerns were raised this could be addressed by enforcement action or if required a further review of the policy and licence conditions.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n The council was also urged to reconsider the \u201cegregious cost of licensing fees\u201d in the letter from SWU. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhile it might seem on the surface that business owners are the ones absorbing it, it is almost invariably passed down to dancers in the form of increased house fees, higher percentages per dance, or other kinds of fees,\u201d it said. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe ongoing pressure from small but vocal pressure groups to close down strip clubs means that the annual licence renewal comes with stress and uncertainty that other licensed premises and their staff do not have to encounter. This discourages workers from reporting exploitative incidences for fear of repercussion upon the premises.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fears have been raised that a strip club \u2018monopoly\u2019 could be created in Edinburgh by new licensing rules aimed at restricting the number of venues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}