Locals object to ‘unsavoury’ and ‘unsafe’ bid for lapdancing club in city centre

A MOV E t o br i n g a lapdancing bar to one of Dundee’s busiest streets has been met with strong objections from locals and other businesses.

As revealed in the Tele, landlord and Inverness Caledonian Thistle chairman Ross Morrison has submitted an application to the city council seeking permission to operate an adult entertainment venue from the former Industry nightclub on Seagate.

The venture would be operated by Andrew Cox, a businessman based in Glasgow where he runs the Seventh Heaven lapdancing bar.

However, since the application was lodged in November, several locals have voiced their opposition to the plan, claiming it will degrade the area.

Concerns have also been shared about the location of the proposed bar, directly opposite St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral and amid other pubs and coffee shops.

Licensing consultant Janet Hood, writing on behalf of two unnamed local businesses, said there are concerns about the club attracting an “unsavoury” clientele.

In a letter to Dundee’s licensing board, she said: “My clients are concerned that the venue might attract persons of an unsavoury nature and might lead to incidents, whether verbal or otherwise, which would cause harm to women living in the area...(it would) make the Seagate a less safe place for women.”

Local resident Fraser Robertson said the creation of a strip club would be a “gross use” of land in the city centre.

He added: “Myself and my flatmates feel this should not be allowed to go ahead.

“Since our jobs can have us working into the evening and the early hours, returning home to drunken clubbers was bad enough when Industry reopened.

“The crowd this relicensing would attract would not make us feel any safer.”

Rachel Allison, of GLOW Tanning and Beauty on Crichton Street, said granting the application would be a “major error of judgment” while the Reverend

Jeremy Auld, the provost of St Paul’s Episcopal, has called for the application to be refused on moral grounds.

“As a Christian church, we promote the worth and dignity of every human being as being equally deserving of honour, dignity and respect without exception,” he said.

“The nature of the business leads inevitably to the objectifying of human beings working in the club as sex objects.

“There are also increasing numbers of families with young

The former Industry nightclub could become a lapdancing bar. Left: How the Tele broke the story.