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| Neighbours fail to curb lap-dancing |
Club fights off noise objections
LAP-DANCERS can gyrate through the night at Spearmint Rhino,
the country’s largest lap-dancing club, after councillors granted
permission for the venue to stay open longer.
Lawyers for the American chain’s flagship branch in Tottenham
Court Road, Bloomsbury, rejected noise complaints from residents
of Paramount Court – a block of nearly 100 flats above the
club – to win the right to stay open until 3am every night.
Councillors said there was no hard evidence that noise in the street
could be blamed on the club.
The new opening hours were hammered out during a two-and-a-half-hour
meeting at the Town Hall on Monday.
Rhino’s lawyer, Julian Skeens, told the councillors that club
bosses were willing to compromise by reducing their request for
later closing hours from 4am to 3am.
He pointed out that noise complaint logs revealed only one phone
call to the council in 18 months. Mr Skeens said: “The only
complaint was when carpet was being laid on a Sunday morning.”
Club manager Graham Melvin, a former detective who once headed Scotland
Yard’s serious crime squad, said Spearmint Rhino was doing
its best to beat minicab touts attracted to the area.
He said: “The last thing I want is to be part of an establishment
that breeds complaints.”
Paramount Court residents said they were tired of complaining about
late-night noise and had given up logging the problems.
Dick Kelly, who lives at the University Street end of the block,
said: “Something has to be done about the noise, extending
the hours to four o’clock is not the answer. I don’t know
who to blame, whether it is the club, the council or the police,
but something has to be done.”
Another resident, Anna Wolfe, said: “We’ve objected so
much but these objections have always fallen on deaf ears. It is
an enormous battle. It is intolerable.”
But Mr Skeens told councillors that noise problems would be eased
by the extended opening hours because customers would leave throughout
the night and not all at the same time at 2am.
He said: “Spearmint Rhino, like any other business, will always
want to improve its business but the important thing to note is
that there will be no increase in the capacity of the club.
“The maximum number of people inside the club will remain the
same.”
Labour environment boss Councillor John Thane said that, if the
Town Hall threw out Spearmint Rhino’s application, it would
lose any legal appeal, because there was not enough solid evidence
to justify refusal.
He added: “I was quite prepared to be convinced by these complaints
but the case has not been made.”
The club’s opening hours will be reviewed again in late November. |
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