Lemington Spa stand by for action

Well I had a couple of things I was going to write about but as usual events have overtaken us and we have more fun and games started this time in Lemington Spa. But it is not just one incident but two. So I will take them in the order I received them. I have to thank John for supplying with this info and would remind any readers if they find anything they think is important please mail me at tonyprince@acdcfan.com

The first incident occured at Amara VIP Gentleman's club on the morning of the 1st April (yeah okay I wondered the same) where the club was robbed and vandalised, you can read more about it and see pictures at this page Now reading the article a couple of things had jumped out at me. Firstly the club had ceased operating as a strip venue and secondly they had been refused when trying to change to a night club. So crime of opportunity? Young vandals after alcohol? Activists not realising the club wasn't going to do striptease any more? Insurance Scam? Well lets hope the police find out who did this. Now lets move onto the issue I find so much more interesting, knowing the club owners wanted to change from striptease to a night club you would think the council would be jumping up and down over this for joy. Well maybe not, I have been doing comparative analysis of strip venues and night clubs under the same council because of this. It seems night clubs are likely to have between 5 and 10 times the amount of violent crime around them to the strip venues and remembering sexual crimes are included in the violence category by the police. You sort of see why a council with any sense would prefer striptease over a night club.

The second incident is that the Green Party, the Hindu Temple committee and local residents have challenged the council decision to grant a SEV license to Shades and you can read the local news article about it here so here we go again? Well it is a judicial review and both sides will have to present on why Shades finally got its' license. Now interestingly having read the judicial review procedure this could be a lot of fun. The issue will come down to the council ignoring certain letters against the club as far as I can see it. But here is the kicker, the guidelines say that moral judgements cannot be taken into account and the letters are likely to be full of moralistic judgements rather than reasoned and valid arguments. So whilst it seems a shame a judicial review should take place it will be interesting but I am really hoping that the review in this case backs the council or we could see religious groups applying for reviews everywhere.

So lets look at the guy behind the judicial review, drum roll please, lets welcome Jonathan Chilvers to the stage. From the Green Party, a blogger since 2005 although he hasn't done anything this year and only one piece last year but then it seems he is now on a different blog although on there he seems to only deal with religion. His interests are god and politics and the role of the church in society. Now I would guess that Mr Chilvers is making moral judgements as are the Hindu temple. Why oh why are people so quick to cast moralistic views at people? The next step is censorship and from there..... well those who have read Bradbury and Orwell have some idea of where censorship can lead if unchecked.

So here we go another crazy set of circumstances and most of it is down to people playing moral guardians. I will be keeping my eye on the goings on in Lemington Spa and you can be sure that we will be backing Shades. And lets hope the criminals who destroyed Amara are caught and punished.

TonyN