Lap Dancing in London

A flagship London West End lap dancing club is in trouble with the local council for offering a little too much fun.

Platinum Lace at Trocadero just off Leicester Square boasts on its website of entertaining the likes of Pixie Lott, Professor Green, Snoop Dogg, David Haye and a host of Premier League footballers.

It hit the headlines earlier this year after a video emerged of two of its dancers encouraging customers to fondle them. And this week, the miserable bosses at Westminster City Council have announced a course of action.

The Council will put questions about their enforcement action in a public consultation and have now confirmed the venue had its licence temporarily extended ahead of the results of the consultation. When the public have had their say, the council's licensing committee will re-visit the application and decided whether consultation to close the club down or not.

An undercover investigation into practices at the club revealed a number of the dancers openly breaking the council regulations, including two dancers called Mindy and Carla , who were covertly filmed allowing customers to grope them in VIP booths. Further footage, shot in December, shows a blonde dancer called Mindy also placing a customer's hands all over her body at the London venue.

A team of officers from Westminster City Council reviewed video evidence and spoke with club bosses after the evidence surfaced earlier this year.

Westminster Council has shut down the Windmill table dancing club after an anonymous feminist group hired private detectives to snitch on no touch rules being broken for private dnances.

The club has 21 days to appeal.

The Windmill is a relic of the area's colourful past as it was previously the venue hosted a long running erotic show.

The Sun visited The Windmill this week to find its glory days are long gone. Low lighting hides stained carpets and scuffed leather seats. On the stage, Eastern European dancers swayed moodily to music. The Sun noted that a private dance costs £40, and a bottle of Becks beer £8.

Offsite Comment: putting women out of work is about the most un-feminist thing possible.

17th January 2018. See article from dazeddigital.com

I've been dancing in strip clubs since 2006, and I query the method and motives behind campaigns to shut down clubs. Closing down a venue may feel like a victory to those who champion the abolition of the industry, but taking work away from women relying on it is tantamount to taking food from our mouths. Thousands of girls who otherwise have less value in the wider job market (foreign nationals, single mums, anyone with any sort of disadvantaged background) are turning to stripping and other forms of sex work to survive. According to the English Collective of Prostitutes, record numbers have moved into the sex industry under austerity, which disproportionately affects women, particularly single mothers. In fact, putting women out of work is about the most un-feminist thing possible.

... Read the full article from dazeddigital.com

Update: The Soho Society

9th February 2018. See article from bbc.com

The move  against Windmill Club came after a women's rights group complained the club was breaching conditions banning physical contact between dancers and clients.

The group had hired former police officers to collect evidence and one of them described how a dancer rubbed herself up and down on him and touched him intimately. He also said the dancer paid the security guard 2£10 to look the other way.

The Soho Society said it was concerned women working for the Windmill may end up in a working environment where they are even more vulnerable than they are at present.