I will be honest, it has been nice and quiet for a while with little things brewing outside. But after Chasmal did his piece on the farewell to the White Horse in Shoreditch and the wonderful send off that ELSC did for the closing I was hoping that the world would settle back to market forces deciding if councils let clubs open rather than the prudishness of the council. But today I write about three levels of idiocy, even worse we look at what certain councils are doing including misleading the public.
So we have seen the FoI for York and we know that 50% is not the number of people against all clubs but on York Press they quote 50%! Not sure which but when you factor in the 25% of respondents objected on moral grounds you get an impression. What the council has done has elected to do is take 81 of 329 total respondents and call it 50% because one of the questions was a yes/no. In fact the overall figures 55% disagreed with the statement "it would not be acceptable to have lap dancing clubs in York". Only 39% actually agreed with that statement and many did so on moral grounds. I have commented on the article that someone is deliberately misleading someone either the council misleading the press or the press misleading the public.
Next we move onto the withdrawing of the application of the license for Villa Mercedes. I have read everything that was sent out by the council including an apparent questionnaire from SRASAC the Rape support people. Now I support the work they do, like any decent man (or pervert for the trolls out there) I believe with every fibre of my being Rape is wrong. But they only put forward answers that support their point of view. How many people did they ask? Was it before or after the session? In what way did they avoid coaching when they ask the question? Of course the Local MP is busy claiming credit for the withdrawal of the application but considering the club didn't rally any support and there was a lot of opposition especially from SRASAC the writing was on the wall. The MP had one of her staff involved and there was a lot of quoting that SEVs create misogyny and contributed to sexual abuse in Rotheram. I have yet to see the empirical data that shows a causal effect but we mustn't let facts blind us.
Finally good old Bournemouth have started a consultation that finishes on the 30th September. Having taken a glance there seems to be a common theme like Leeds and York in wording the consultation to try and get an end result that they want. The link to the council site from which you can get to the consultation is here . I am sure those in and around the area will want to write in and protect the clubs or will complete the survey. To be honest I think a lot of people will not even get their heads round how the questions are structured and what the answers mean.
TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)
