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Published: 25 February 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

IN the blue corner was Chris Knight, one of the lap-dancing industry’s biggest names, fighting for the right to open a 300-capacity club just a stiletto’s stumble from nearly 200 family homes.

In the red corner was a Labour councillor, the club’s elderly neighbours and at least two men of the cloth.
They clashed at the Town Hall on Thursday night before plans for Blue Diamond lap-­dancing club in High Holborn, formerly the Leisure Lounge, were thrown out.

Licensing chiefs ruled the venue, run by the For Your Eyes Only chain, could cause nuisance to residents and workers in the area. Nearby law firms said they feared female staff risked being accosted by sexually aroused men leaving the premises.

But while the decision was met with clapping from objectors – 51 letters of complaint were lodged – the priests and pensioners present went home with a much clearer picture of what takes place behind the closed doors of strip clubs than perhaps they would have liked.

The Rev Dr Michael Lloyd of St Andrew’s church in Holborn said: “There are a lot of law firms in the area and ­single women going home late at night.

“If you have people coming out of a club, for want of a better word, sexually charged, that’s going to create a danger.”

Earlier in the evening Mr Knight, the vice-chairman of the Lap Dancing Association, had given an eye-opening account of the practices in his clubs, touching upon everything from the kinds of music played – contemporary, but played at a level that would allow in-depth conversation to flow – to the high-flying clientele that used his establishments.

According to a snapshot survey of business cards handed in at their City Road club for their monthly lucky dip, he said “50 company directors, three CEOs, four business analysts and 15 law firm partners” had all passed through their doors recently.

The club’s entertainment was also explained to councillors.

“Stag on stage” was described as the moment when a soon-to-be husband or birthday boy is given a public dance on stage by two women “in front of his friends”. ­

Private booths are in fact anything but, merely being small cubicles where the girls are on full view to security staff, he added, as well as under constant surveillance by an army of CCTV cameras.

The seedier side of the industry – fears over prostitution – is stamped down upon hard, Mr Knight argued, insisting that while his dancers accept telephone numbers from punters, it’s only to avoid confron­tation.

“They rip them up and give them to us straight away,” he said, “because they know if they don’t give them to us straight away they’ll be in trouble. The misconception is they want to go further than just having a dance. They don’t.
“It’s a little unfair on the girls.”

Earlier Mr Knight’s solicitor Julia Palmer had told the panel that “sexual activity is not permitted on the premises”.

For those at the hearing, held in the main chamber to accommodate the large numbers who turned up to see the proceedings, the rules surrounding what level of contact was allowed between punters and dancers were also laid out.

Money pressed into a garter or the hand is OK; an “accidental knee-brush” is not encouraged but exceptions can be made; “straddling,” however, is banned.

Julian Fulbrook,  Labour ward councillor for Holborn, told the chain they were not ­welcome in the area.
“There is a prolif­eration of such establishments in this area,” he said.
“There comes a point when enough is enough. This is under 200 flats – the Gamages development [council estate] is like a doughnut.
“The sound would well up.”

Licensing councillor Tom Simon, a Lib Dem, said: “It’s not so much what they are but where they want to be.
“I am uncomfortable with the location of the venue – there are places of worship, residential areas and schools
nearby.

“There is too much of a risk of public nuisance from people coming and going and there are people working until the small hours as well.”