Examination of Witnesses (Questions 250
- 259)
TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2008
MS SANDRINE
LEVÊQUE AND
MS NADINE
STAVONINA DE
MONTAGNAC
Chairman: Good morning. Welcome to the
final session of the Committee's inquiry into the implementation
of the Licensing Act and we will be finishing this morning by
hearing from the Minister who I am sure will be extremely pleased
to know that you have all come to hear him. However, before we
get to the end we are going to focus specifically on the issue
of lap dancing licensing and therefore I would like to welcome
from Object Sandrine Levêque, the Advocacy Officer and Nadine
Stavonina de Montagnac. Adrian Sanders is going to start.
Q250 Mr Sanders: What in your view
are the drawbacks of lap dancing establishments being regulated
by the Licensing Act?
Ms Levêque: One of the key
aims of the Licensing Act 2003 was to make licensing decisions
more democratic at the local level and yet what we have seen with
this legislation is that in terms of lap dancing licensing has
actually become far less democratic. Obviously this was not an
intended consequence of the Act and we welcome the Government's
efforts to address this which are currently underway. These efforts
are needed because local authorities now find themselves with
fewer powers to control lap dancing clubs in their area. As you
know very well, the Act amalgamated six different licensing regimes
and the following venues are now all controlled by the Act. So
we see pubs and nightclubs, indoor sporting events, restaurants
and cafés that serve alcohol, hotels, private members clubs,
theatres, cinemas and lap dancing clubs all under the same category,
yet lap dancing clubs are not ordinary leisure venues, they are
venues where customers pay female performers to sexually stimulate
them by pole dancing, table dancing or dancing on their lap whilst
removing most or all of their clothing. It is clear that they
have more in common with peep shows and sex cinemas than Pizza
Express or Odeon Cinemas. However, they find themselves all lumped
into the same category sharing the same licence, the same licensing
objectives and the same licensing processes. The Lap Dancing Association
would argue that licensing conditions can be tailored to the activities
offered by each venue, yet licensing authorities find themselves
hamstrung by licensing objectives that focus on regulating leisure
venues not elements of the sex industry. The licensing objectives
focus on alcohol, crime and disorder and do not reflect wider
community and equality objectives. The Secretary of State's guidance
under section 182 of the Licensing Act states that the 1982 Government
Miscellaneous Provisions Act remains in force to assist local
councils in controlling the sex industry. In fact the Act does
not give local councils control over the proliferation of lap
dancing clubs as they are exempt from that Act. So that is actually
not true. Therefore licensing authorities find themselves with
inadequate controls. These controls are inadequate because, as
elements of the sex industry, lap dancing clubs have a very different
social impact from other venues that hold a premises licence.
They are linked to sexism in the workplace as a case just two
weeks ago demonstrated where two women were awarded a £4
million payout for experiencing sexism and sexual harassment for
two years at a city firm. That included colleagues conducting
business in lap dancing clubs and using women in prostitution.
The lap dancing clubs create no-go areas for women where their
sense of security and entitlement to public space is reduced and,
as the case of Newquay shows, they fundamentally change the nature
of an area in terms of their local impact. Yet local residents
are unable to object to a lap dancing club on the grounds of it
being a lap dancing club. Instead they find themselves objecting
on the grounds of parking, noise, antisocial behaviour or, as
a recent case in West Kensington showed, the location of toilets.
Residents and local authorities are also unable to object on the
grounds of gender. This is despite the gender equality duty which
was introduced last year requiring local authorities to promote
gender equality in everything that they do. Whilst some argue
that because women choose to work in lap dancing clubs such venues
therefore have no gender impact on the rest of society, this is
an argument that clearly defies logic. Despite branding themselves
as gentlemen's clubs the fact remains that lap dancing clubs promote
gender stereotypes and their expansion is therefore a key concern
to women's organisations up and down the country, including the
Fawcett Society with whom we have joined forces, Rape Crisis England
and Wales, the White Ribbon Campaign (which is a male-led campaign
to end violence against women) and various domestic violence forums.
The fact that gender, along with the problems I have already highlighted,
cannot be taken into account by licensing authorities, it is not
the sign of a healthy democratic licensing system; it is the sign
of a licensing system which tips the balance firmly in favour
of club owners. My final point is that the LDA argues that these
concerns are met by planning regimes and that lap dancing clubs
are categorised as sui generis, ensuring that applications
undergo a full consultation.
Q251 Chairman: If I may interrupt
you, we do not usually have very long opening statements.
Ms Levêque: I was going
on the previous session so I wanted to give as full an answer
as I could.
Q252 Mr Sanders: Apart from all that,
are there any positive aspects?
Ms Levêque: I think there
are positive aspects if you are a club owner and there are multiple
benefits because, whereas clubs required two licences before,
they now require just one licence and a much more limited range
of factors can be taken into account during the licensing process.
They benefit from longer licences and, despite claims by the LDA
that any resident can call a review of a licence, in practice
it is very difficult for residents to get enough evidence together
to do that. Also, licences are far cheaper than before. It is
no surprise that lap dancing clubs have actually doubled in number
since 2004. We have got that figure from using industry sources
because obviously the government themselves—the local councils—do
not have accurate numbers on how many lap dancing clubs exist.
Q253 Mr Sanders: There is a difference
between people objecting to the licence on the basis that there
is evidence of disorder (which is what the public can and should
do if they have concerns) and people simply objecting because
they do not like what happens inside the doors of the club. Would
you accept that?
Ms Levêque: The point is
that local communities are entitled to have a choice over the
quantity and the location of lap dancing clubs in their area.
For all the reasons that I outlined earlier they have a very different
social impact from other venues that fall under those licensing
objectives. Fundamentally those licensing objectives were drawn
up to regulate leisure venues not elements of the sex industry.
I think—and we are backed up by a lot of local residents
in this—that people do have other concerns and they simply
cannot be taken into account in the system as it is at the moment.
Q254 Chairman: You talk about the
impact on the communities. We had evidence from the police a few
weeks ago who said that lap dancing clubs were actually better
staffed and less likely to cause disorder than other kinds of
nightclubs.
Ms Levêque: Yes, I know;
we are not saying that lap dancing clubs are increasing crime
in the vicinity of where they are located. That is actually beside
the point because obviously the Licensing Act is heavily focussed
on crime and disorder and there are adequate controls to deal
with that. This issue is very separate from that. Our issue is
that local communities do not have the right to have their say
in licensing processes; it is just not as democratic as it should
be. I would also add that there are a number of cases where the
local police have actually objected to a lap dancing club and,
having spoken with the person who gave that evidence, it is interesting
to note that they are saying that there no links to criminal activity
within clubs but we have got it from the Metropolitan Police that
the only mechanism in place for ascertaining that is customers
themselves coming to the police and saying there are problems.
As we can imagine that is very unlikely to happen. So there is
actually no mechanism in place for the police to be getting that
evidence and when they were doing that, i.e. doing undercover
operations back in 2002, we did see a case go to court where the
Metropolitan Police collected a lot of evidence and did suggest
there were problems. So even on that argument I would say that
it is not as simple as it seems.
Q255 Chairman: There may be lap dancing
clubs where criminal activities take place in the same way as
there are pubs where criminal activities take place and the police
can obviously oppose the licence for a pub on that basis. That
is not a reason to impose stronger controls on all lap dancing
clubs.
Ms Levêque: That is not
at all what we are saying. The proposal that we are calling for,
the sex encounter establishment regime, does not give a licence
for lap dancing clubs to sell sex; it is a licence for visual
entertainment for sexual stimulation. We do not want that licence
because we think lap dancing comes with selling sex; this is not
at all what this is about. It is about giving local communities
better controls which is a separate issue from looking at whether
there are links to criminal activity. I just wanted to mention
that the criminal activity side is not as simple as it seems and
that is actually a policing issue, it is not an issue for the
SEEL regime.
Q256 Chairman: You have talked about
your concerns that lap dancing clubs may encourage sexual discrimination
in the workplace; they may actually lead to rape. Is it not the
case that actually you would like to close down lap dancing clubs?
Ms Levêque: We are not calling
for a ban on lap dancing clubs; we are calling for them to not
be licensed in the same way as leisure venues; we are calling
for them to be recognised, licensed and regulated for what they
are which is an element of the sex industry. We think that people
should have more of a say in the licensing of them because they
are part of the sex industry and that is not happening at the
moment. This is not a campaign calling for them to be banned.
It is very clear from our campaign literature and from what we
have been saying that that is not the case. We think better controls
should be in place.
Q257 Chairman: Does your organisation
think they should be banned?
Ms Levêque: That is not
what the campaign is about.
Q258 Chairman: That is not what my
question is.
Ms Levêque: From our point
of view lap dancing clubs promote sexism and the objectification
of women in a context where we have extreme imbalances between
the genders. Today I am wearing a white ribbon because it is White
Ribbon Day which is an international day calling for an end to
violence against women. We think it is really important to look
at attitudes that underpin violence and discrimination against
women. One of those key attitudes is dehumanising someone into
an object. When you live in a society in which we are surrounded
by images that do that we think it is important to look at practices
that encourage this so we are therefore taking up this issue of
lap dancing clubs because we think they should be licensed for
what they are and for people to have more of a say if they do
not want one to open where they live.
Ms Stavonina de Montagnac: As
a former lap dancer—I was in the industry for eight years
and I no longer do so—I would like to add that the most
important aspect in this licensing for me is to call a spade a
spade. When I was in the industry it was not about selling sexual
visual entertainment, I thought it was like being a showgirl.
I thought it was dancing, entertainment, being on stage, being
a star which is how it was sold to me. It was glamorised and we
were told we would do very little work, we would look great, we
would get lots of money and there was no touching allowed. The
reality was very different. I have witnessed quite a lot of things
going on and the attitude towards women by people in charge is
appalling, the longer the clubs were running—compared to
the late 1990s when I was in the industry to now—because
so many women go into the industry because it is wrongly sold.
They have too many women per each customer so it is very easy
to change women and swap them; it does not really matter, club
owners claim. If the women do not like it they can leave because
for every one that leaves there are three who enter the industry.
I think it is important to call a spade a spade because the women
entering the industry are vulnerable people; they enter it believing
it to be something other than what it is. They think they will
be protected and safeguarded but are being abused and brainwashed
into it.
Q259 Chairman: You are suggesting
that you had a completely false idea of what the industry was
when you entered it.
Ms Stavonina de Montagnac: Yes.
| 
