There were passionate speeches, barbed exchanges, tears and laughter – hardly the usual fare at a meeting of Bristol city council’s licensing committee.
But most committee members could not help but smile when performers from the city’s two lapdancing clubs greeted their decision not to shut down the venues with whoops and cheers.
For six years the Labour-led council has been agonising over whether to bring in a ban on all sex entertainment venues (SEVs) in Bristol to protect women and girls across the city. More than 6,000 people took part in a consultation and the council’s moves were being keenly watched by authorities from across the UK.
Women’s campaigners have strongly argued that there ought to be a blanket ban on Bristol’s SEVs, claiming they lead to misogyny and violence.
But after hearing testimony from the dancers that they will be driven into less safe workplaces or face financial ruin if SEVS are banned, members of the licensing committee voted nine to one against a prohibition on Thursday.
The dancers posed for pictures outside city hall and, in a statement issued through the Bristol Sex Workers’ Collective, said: “We are screaming, crying, throwing up with joy”.
WE DID IT!!! After a two year slog of campaigning against people with far more institutional power and privilege than a group of sex workers, we beat the nil-cap with a vote of 9-1. We are screaming, crying, throwing up with joy rn.
— Bristol Sex Workers Collective (@BristolSWC) July 28, 2022
The decision was fiercely condemned by Bristol Women’s Commission, which accused the committee of failing to take action to “tackle the sexist culture that underpins male violence”.
It said: “SEVs promote and profit from the sexist culture that underpins male violence. We cannot tackle male violence without addressing this culture.
“Today’s decision gives Bristol’s two strip clubs the green light to exploit the cost-of-living crisis and recruit more young women into the sex industry, and to open the door to sex buying to future generations of young men. It reinforces a dangerous, sexist message to all women and girls that their value lies in their bodies and how they perform for men.
We are extremely disappointed and frustrated that @BristolCouncil's Licensing Committee has not taken this chance to take clear action to tackle the sexist culture that underpins male violence.
— Bristol Women’s Commission (@BWCommission) July 28, 2022
Read our full statement here > https://t.co/IVp31gGCPr
“We know that some people will be celebrating this as a win, but the real winners here are men who want unhindered access women’s bodies.”
One of the performers, Amelie, told Thursday’s meeting she worked at the lap
dancing club Urban Tiger for three years after struggling to make ends meet as a circus performer. She said: “Stripping has allowed me to have a flexible enough schedule to pursue my dream career whilst simultaneously enabling me to live a comfortable life.
“Closing Urban Tiger and Central Chambers [the second club] would push me back into poverty, precarious and underpaid work – or I will most likely keep on dancing in Bristol, but in riskier spaces where there will be no security staff and no CCTV. I find it particularly cruel to push a workforce that is predominantly female into poverty.”
A second performer, Layla, said: “Dancing has given me financial freedom,” adding that she had been sexually harassed not while working at lapdancing clubs but in other venues on nights out.
Others had called for Bristol to be brave and ban all SEVs. Nick Gazzard, founder of the Hollie Gazzard Trust, which campaigns on violence against women, said: “We need the city council to lead the way in promoting mutual respect between boys and girls, men and women, and to help in educating young people on how to achieve healthy relationships, rather than licensing the objectification of women.”
The police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset police, Mark Shelford, also backed the idea of a ban, but members from all five political parties represented on the council voted against it.
The Labour chair of the licensing committee, Marley Bennett, said the city had to do everything it could to fight violence against women and girls and acknowledged the industry was about sexually arousing men. He said he had suffered sleepless nights over the issue but concluded it was better to have regulated clubs rather than lapdancing being driven underground.
Bennett continued: “These are working-class women performers who would be losing their livelihoods during a cost-of-living crisis. I’m a trade unionist. They have a profession they say they want to maintain.”
One of the biggest rounds of applause from the dancers came for Green councillor Guy Poultney, who criticised some of those who said they were representing the interests of the performers.
He said: “Some of the voices we have heard are sometimes advancing arguments we should discount the voices of some women in order to empower them and to restrict their choices in the name of equality and take away their jobs for their own good.”
The only committee member supporting a ban, Labour’s Philippa Hulme, said having lapdancing clubs did not sit well with the image of progressive Bristol. She said: “There’s a vast weight of evidence that visiting these venues leads customers to objectify women and leads to misogyny.”
