Red Apple Associates applied to provide sexual entertainment at the 2 Pigs pub on 11 occasions annually to coincide with race meetings at Cheltenham Racecourse: two days in October, three in November, two in December and four in March.
The proposed operating times were 8pm until 4am during the October, November and December meetings and 5pm until 5am during the Cheltenham Festival in March.
Gloucestershire police did not object, but did ask for a number of conditions to be added and for the earliest start time during the Cheltenham Festival to be amended to 6pm rather than 5pm.
No complaints for anti-social behaviour
And the committee went along with the police request and duly changed the start time for sexual entertainment during the Cheltenham Festival from 5pm to 6pm.
According to Gloucestershire Live, Red Apple Associates owner Steven Burrows, one of the licensees of the 2 Pigs Nicholas Binding and ‘house mother’ Ruby Stevens who would look after the performers, were present at the meeting of Cheltenham Borough Council’s licensing committee.
Burrows said the company had used the 2 Pigs for five years without any complaints from police about anti-social behaviour.
He added that if the SEV licence wasn’t granted, his company would look to put on sexual entertainment events at the pubs around Cheltenham using a national exemption.
Difficult to obtain and keep
This means that in theory, a different pub in the town could play host to lap dancing for one day each day of the race meeting without having to inform the local authority it was taking place.
Poppleston Allen partner Andy Grimsey said SEV licences can be difficult to get and just as tricky to keep.
He added: “The criteria for refusing an SEV are wide and not like the four licensing objectives under the Licensing Act 2003.
“These can include the character of the locality, the appropriateness of an SEV in that locality and the uses of other premises in the vicinity.
“Even once obtained, an operator must effectively re-apply each year to continue trading, and local residents and community interests can challenge the application with little or no change in circumstances.”