Lap-dancing club could face closure (From This Is Local London)

This club should not have been given a licence in the first place as the public did not want it.
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It was only the complete disregard by the local Liberal Democrats to the views of all the Area Consultation Meetings (ACMs) and the bullying of the Conservative member on the licensing committee that allowed this bad licence to be granted in the first place and it should be revoked now as it has always conflicted with Council policy here.
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It is time the Council stood up to some of the vested interests in the borough who interferred with the democratic processes hwne they knew what the policy was and just waited until the LibDems were in power. The Council under the LibDems 'bottling out' in the same way that Gordon Brown did over the 2007 non-election when he removed Blair as leader... and look what happened to them!

Phillip Taylor

The objectors here are clearly doing so on the gounds of morals & are uncomfortable with any idea of sex as something recreational. The only people who would benefit from shutting this establishment would be the even more seedy operations - like the numerous brothels that operate across the borough.
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If you doubt it look in any newsagents window. Today in Whitton I spotted adverts in 3 seperate brothels on prominent display and nobody could be left in any doubt that they were offering sex for sale.
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The police have clear powers to shut them down but choose to turn a blind eye. In the rare instances they do act - they simply move them on.
y themselves are reluctant to do.

Traces of cocaine? What did they expectbto find - dolly mixture?

I have never met Mr Angliss but I do know he has run entertainment businesses in Twickenham for a great deal longer than the 20 years I have lived in the Town.

Where there is a demand, there is a supply is there not and I wonder how many local husbands slip into the Piano Bar after working late in the office....?

Who asked the Police to carry out an undercover operation? How do we know any suspected drugs weren't "planted" ?

When the Liberal Democrats dished out late night drinking licences like sweets (in line with new government legislation), I presume Mr Angliss had to find a way of competing, hence the adaption of his already established late night drinking club to a lap dancing venue.

I am no fan of this type of entertainment but if Wally is finally hounded out of town and sells out to a chain of lap dancing clubs or yet another fast food outlet, local residents might well find they have gone from the frying pan into the fire with what comes next....

What goes on here is no worse than what can be found at other late night pubs in the town - some of which are on the same street as the local police station. Substances and people are being sold in late night pubs, and there's a dark atmosphere in the town on friday & sat nights.
At least this establishment is being above board and paying its taxes. You know roughtly what you'll get if you go there, whereas the Police allowing this kind of behaviour in the local pubs is the real disgrace - i don't want to feel threatened in a public boozer with these themes, but the richmond bobbies are going for an easy target as always.
Go find the guys who robbed 30 houses near crane park the other week!! do some real polices work.!!
what i object to is the Police taking an all expenses paid jolly to the club at the Taxpayers expense to do some fact-finding. I bet they had no shortage of volunteers for this assignment, but having to do some real 'investigation' - errr, "no thanks DCI Boss, can i go see the dancing girls instead?"

aspicer wrote:
What goes on here is no worse than what can be found at other late night pubs in the town - some of which are on the same street as the local police station. Substances and people are being sold in late night pubs, and there's a dark atmosphere in the town on friday & sat nights.
At least this establishment is being above board and paying its taxes. You know roughtly what you'll get if you go there, whereas the Police allowing this kind of behaviour in the local pubs is the real disgrace - i don't want to feel threatened in a public boozer with these themes, but the richmond bobbies are going for an easy target as always.
Go find the guys who robbed 30 houses near crane park the other week!! do some real polices work.!!
what i object to is the Police taking an all expenses paid jolly to the club at the Taxpayers expense to do some fact-finding. I bet they had no shortage of volunteers for this assignment, but having to do some real 'investigation' - errr, "no thanks DCI Boss, can i go see the dancing girls instead?"

A spcicer says:

"At least this establishment is being above board and paying its taxes".

I think this is yet to be established if it is all "above board". Reasons for investigating are not just knee-jerk, and we await to see the outcome of any hearing which comes up. I would invite A Spicer to attend Licencing meetings if you haven't already, then you hear all sides in one go.

What is more concerning to me is your comment:

"Substances and people are being sold in late night pubs, and there's a dark atmosphere in the town on friday & sat nights".

I am actively enterested in your overall approach you would suggest and in conjunction with whom to sort out this problem, and I sympathise with these comments whole-heartedly having seen a guy carried out or the William Web Ellis last week like a plank, cuffed, without shirt on, and carried by six officers, such was the battle he appeared to have put up. This also was punctuated by four police cars.

he was carried in through the front doors of the police station, no ,pre than 50 metres away!!

Your and other residents thoughts please would be welcomed, to make out town inviting for the broad range of locals who live here and would like to have a "civilised drink" without fear, or is this not possible in the centre of town we live in at night?

People from surrounding towns are attracted into Twickenham and Richmond because of the Twickenham Rugby - attracts a huge amount of trade.
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This means there is lot more venues than their would be otherwise. This unnaturally high supply attracts more people to the town to binge drink as their are a range of venues to go in a bar crawl.
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On non-match days venues compete for more trade by turning up the music and turning them into more or less a discotheque.
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A eight hour dry period so that pubs and bars cant serve alcohol before or after a game - would remove much of the blight binge drinking is inflicting on Richmond and Twickenham.
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I not sure that more than 1 comment per article per person should be allowed, as it can degenerate the flow to the exclusion of the wider readers, but I'll make an exception, it is nearly Christmas!

The establishment should firstly be given the same grace as the rest of us in being presumed 'innocent until proven guilty' regarding the way it is run. With staff on the payroll, VAT returns, corp tax/personal tax returns all having to be filed regularly, HMRC will be calling if there is anything amiss. But would it be morally any worse than paying the cash-in-hand house or window cleaners many of you have, gardeners & a great number of the self-employed? I don’t know a lawyer or accountant in London who doesn't do 90% business miles in their cars they never use, and they all have a spouse on the payroll - it's all tax evasion,... (sorry 'avoidance', if it's white-collar).

That aside, what has been created in some of the towns drinking holes is a 2 night week. Dead during the week, only to be rammed in fri & sat nights. For some, it will be only these 2 nights which allow them to survive. Ramming a pub makes it less controllable. Dark corners exist for the murkier side of life. Movement, therefore security is restricted within these pubs. Doormen, too occupied with the entrance, don't bother to look around the inside, whilst drunken and dodgy behaviour of large numbers of people goes unchecked by managers unable to cope with the volume.

When it comes to licensing, for the troublesome pubs, if their premises can hold a max of 400 people say, only allow 280 at any one time. More space inside, means more control being handed back to the floor managers and those running the pub for people's safety. It results in less trouble, fewer issues and no place to hide for dodgy dealings.

This will not please those bars which rely on this w/end crowd, but they'll have to 'diversify' for the midweek crowd, or simply go under.
Take the cabbage patch (£3.95 for a Guinness - I reported this to the police as daylight robbery, but they weren't interested, typical!), but they have a quiz night, salsa dancing, music club, a sports bar with big TVs, pool tables, darts, a slightly more posh 'wine bar' area, kids room, outside area, are active in the charitable community, the local rugby team, bar food menu, etc. - all things designed to create attendance for other reasons than to get drunk on fri & sat.
The way licences are issued in the town, and the overcrowding allowed in the pubs, creates a no-go areas and an environment that allows the darker side of life to exist in the town at weekends.