Club faces fight for survival after licence is revoked
THE owners of iconic Soho lapdancing club The Windmill are determined Westminster City Council will not shut it down – something which even German bombing during The Blitz could not achieve.
In fact, the Great Windmill Street club’s owner, Daniel Owide, claims a series of stings by former undercover police officers were set up deliberately by another London club trying to ruin The Windmill’s reputation.
The stings uncovered dancers allowing customers to break the “no touching” rule. During the operations, one officer claimed he was asked to pay £10 so that security would “look the other way”.
The unknown group which carried out the stings in late 2017 described themselves as being motivated by protecting women’s rights and passed their information on to the council.
The council then refused to renew the club’s licence and a judge later upheld this decision in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in October 2018.
Mr Owide has now lodged an appeal against the decision, but Mr Owide has suspicions that the stings were actually orchestrated by a rival strip club, which he declined to name.
“It wasn’t by a women’s rights group, it was orchestrated by another club,” he said.
He suspects the unlicensed drivers of rickshaws that have become a much-complained about feature of Soho, and a concern for the council and local businesses, may have participated in the claimed plot.
He claims evidence already exists that street touts and rickshaw drivers are involved in directing sex trade customers and suggested they are taking money to transport punters to other clubs by telling them The Windmill is closed.
“The reason this came about is because I made complaints on several occasions to the council and police about touts and rickshaw drivers hanging around our door,” Mr Owide said.
“Our customers were being told things like we’d burnt down and they should go to different types of clubs.”
The club has now lodged an appeal after the council stripped it of its sexual entertainment licence in January this year.
Whoever was behind it, Mr Owide says the club has simply not been given a second chance since it cleared out dancers and security staff following the investigation and court case that followed.
He said the trouble also came during a time of stress at the club, as his late father, Soho strip club czar Oscar Owide, often described as a “colourful” character and “Britain’s biggest pimp”, was becoming unwell.
Mr Owide senior died in December, shortly after the council stings.
Council papers say the unidentified complainant organised the stings because they believed in women’s rights and were unhappy with the objectification of women, alleging the club allowed groping, pinching and slapping of performers.
One of the undercover former police officers wrote in his witness statement for the council that he was offered the chance to pay an extra £10 for security to “look the other way”.
The officer wrote: “I was approached by a dark-haired female who was wearing a see-through dressing gown and red bra, suspender belt, knickers and high-heeled shoes.
“She told me her name was Summer and that she had recognised me. I bought her a white wine and a Malibu and coke for [another] performer.”
He wrote that the dancer initiated sexual contact despite his protestations and he said he witnessed another client sexually touching a lap dancer.
He also described two more lap dances in which another dancer broke the “no-touching” rules.
A judge this October upheld the council’s decision not to renew the club’s licence after the Windmill’s owner Big Country Ltd made an appeal.
The judgment said despite Mr Owide’s efforts to clean up the problem with measures including training staff, increased CCTV and hiring new security, issues with his previous management of another bar meant he was unable to manage the Windmill’s licence.
Mr Owide, however, said the issues he had faced at the Crazy Horse bar in Stanmore were complex, saying after the local council gave him a late night licence residents began complaining about the noise and behaviour of the clientele.
He added that his father’s ailing health and his battle with the touts had caused him to take his “eyes off the ball” at The Windmill in late 2017.
“The problem is I was out dealing with the rickshaws every night and the touts. My father was getting very weak and this club was his life, he wanted to be here to the very, very end, and I think some of the dancers and some of the security saw an opportunity,” Mr Owide said. “It’s been an extremely hard year.” Mr Owide says the club is still open – now offering drag and dancing on Sundays, which Mr Owide said harks back to the former Windmill Theatre’s oldschool revues.
“I think we are still the best lap-dancing club in this country,” he said.
Comedians including Peter Sellers launched their careers at The Windmill Theatre, which inspired Judi Dench film Mrs Henderson Presents.
During its revue heyday it was known for coming up with a novel way to convince 1930s censors that showcasing nude women on stage was not obscene.
Performers stood on stage nude, but stock still, as the theatre’s proprietor successfully argued nude statues were not considered objectionable.
In some shows the performers stood behind giant fans, which were removed to reveal the dancer’s nudity.
The Windmill was transformed into a cinema in 1964, and in the decades following it variously became a nude show venue, a cabaret club and television studio, before Oscar Owide took over the bar in 1994 and revived it as a table-dancing club.