020 7242 4986 or 0333 240 0591 London | Birmingham | Cardiff
27.08.2015
Dr Ashley Bowes appeared for the successful applicant, and also succeeded in persuading the Council to depart in a number of respects from its recently adopted standard conditions. The Council considered whether there would be harm to the relevant locality and concluded that there was not enough evidence of this to justify refusing the application.
The Policing and Crime Act 2009 introduced for the first time a licensing regime to cover pole-dancing, lap-dancing, strip-shows and other relevant entertainment. "Relevant entertainment" is widely defined and covers:
"... a live performance or live display of nudity and must be of such a nature that, ignoring financial gain, it must reasonably be assumed to have been provided solely or principally for the purpose of sexually stimulating any member of the audience."
Interestingly, "relevant activity" does not automatically require a licence throughout the country. Every Council in the country has to decide whether to adopt the new powers of control. If it has not opted-in by 6 April 2011 a Council must consult local people about whether or not it should do so.
If a Council has adopted the new powers, it can refuse to grant an SEV license on a broad range of grounds, wider than the licensing objectives which are in play when a premises license application is determined. The grounds, set-out within Schedule 3 Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 (as amended by the 2009 Act), are:
Ashley comments:
"With more authorities opting to adopt these new powers the issues presented by the new regime are likely to become more prevalent. One particularly unusual aspect is that a local authority is only able to grant a licence for a maximum period of 1 year. This will put inevitable pressure on resource-stretched local authorities to process renewal applications where very little may have changed since the grant of the license. It also increases commercial risk for operators especially in light of the judgment in R(Thompson) v Oxford City Council [2013] EWHC 1819 (Admin.) in which Haddon-Cave J held that the Council were entitled to refuse to renew a licence granted only 1 year previously (upheld on appeal [2014] EWCA Civ. 94)."
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