ONE of the country’s best-known lap-dancing clubs has had its opening hours cut back after neighbours complained of sleepless nights due to noisy punters. 

Spearmint Rhino’s flagship venue in Tottenham Court Road will be forced to close its doors two hours earlier after a Camden Council licensing committee set out to tackle late-night disturbances that have been the cause of objections from those living nearby for more than a decade. 

Lap-dancing venues must renew their licence every year and managers at Spearmint Rhino were told that if the noise complaints “continue without remedy” it could be refused in the future. 

A three-and-a-half-hour meeting last Thursday heard from residents who live above the club and in nearby Paramount Court. One neighbour, who has lived close to Spearmint Rhino since the 1970s, said: “You’ve had about 300 letters from me in the course of 14 years, basically all saying the same thing. It’s the noise that is my bugbear. Every single night I am woken up at one time or another, up until 4.45 in the morning. It closes at 4am, but by the time the girls come out and the staff come out it can be much later.”

Labour ward councillor Rishi Madlani said the club was “utterly inappropriate” for the area and urged the committee to reject the application.

He said that the area was rapidly changing and the approval of the West End Project would see that accelerate.

Lawyer Robert Sutherland, representing the club, said they did not accept much of the evidence given by neighbours and insisted that independent surveys of noise levels had found they did not exceed regulations. 

Licensing committee chairman Thomas Gardiner said: “This noise is real and is having a real impact on [residents’] lives. They have suffered from this noise problem for a long period of time and now is the time to remedy that.”

The meeting heard that “porn stars” who attended an adult entertainment industry party at the club after the Paul Raymond Awards in November had exposed their breasts to photographers on the street as they arrived. 

Cllr Gardiner told the club’s managers: “I was lost for words when I read about it. Clearly if that kind of thing is going on immediately outside the premises, that is going to be a real cause for concern about how the premises are being run.”

Mr Sutherland said the club “had nothing to do with the individual who exposed herself”.

After the decision was made to shut the club at 2am Monday to Friday, and at 1am on Sundays, Cllr Madlani said it was a “good result” and would secure “676 hours a year less objectification of women and a positive result for the residents of Paramount Court”.