Broad Street Lap Dance Battle

Birmingham’s Broad Street boss is fighting to stop a fourth lap-dancing club opening on the city’s Golden Mile.

The Manager of Broad Street Business Improvement District, and one-time Come Dine With Me star, Mike Olley, has opposed the application put forward by the imaginatively named ‘Paradise Club’.

“We simply do not want another lap dancing club because it will lower the standing of Broad Street.”

Mike is “determined that the area would not become like Hamburg’s sleazy Reeperbahn”

With beacons of class such as the luxurious Gatecrasher and the lavish Revolution, it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to tarnish the high street with a fourth lap dance venue, Mike suggests.

Birmingham City Council has rejected an application for the licence to sell alcohol by the owners of the venue.

Mike said: “They lost the application and we are very glad about that because our view is there are too many lap dancing clubs in Broad Street”.

The West Midlands Police consider such venues to be low crime risk operations and so did not oppose the proposal.

Perhaps more significant are the concerns raised by various women’s groups who argue that such clubs create a more dangerous environment for the exploitation of women, as well as contributing to the general over sexualisation of women in consumer culture.

Arguably missing the bigger picture, Mike points out that he “doubts there is trade for a fourth one, this is a massive gamble.”

Jez: “If you build it, they will come, that’s my market research”

Eutony Limited, the company behind the Paradise plan, did not wish to comment.

There are already three lap-dancing clubs on the road, and with names like Rocket, Cyclone, Legs 11 and now potentially Paradise Club, at the very least we should be asking whether there is a possibility they may eventually run out of original names.

People can make objections until December 1 and the earliest the application can go to licence is in January.