Strip club's licence renewed

Bosses of Baby Platinum on King Street had applied for a renewal of their sexual entertainment licence with the same terms as before.

This means the controversial part of the licence allowing dancers to remove their g-strings during private dances has also been renewed.

Councillors approved the application at a town hall licensing meeting yesterday.

Five letters of objection have been submitted in response to the latest renewal application. But committee members found they had no grounds not to grant an extension to the current terms.

The club opened in 2014 and has been subject to police inspections during this time, council documents reveal.

Despite initial concerns about its impact on the town centre, a police report presented to the committee stated officers had only been called to the club on eight occasions in those two years.

A letter from PC Clive Rigby, detailing police involvement, reads: “These incidents have been for a variety of reasons, none of which would be considered serious.

However, one incident that did raise concerns for officers involved three of the dancers facing allegations of drug use, as revealed by the Evening Post earlier this week.

The committee read: “On April 25 information was received from the council’s central watch team regarding an incident involving three female dancers from the premises. CCTV footage showed the three dancers stood on the corner of Rodney Street and all appeared to take cocaine from a bag produced by one of the dancers.”

It added club bosses swiftly “identified, interviewed and then dismissed” those involved and the incident did not cause committee members to quash the licence bid.

Wigan MP Lisa Nandy had led a campaign in recent years calling on the council not to allow the club’s dancers to perform naked during private dances.
Plans for another Wigan town centre strip club were scuppered by councillors earlier this year.

Applicant David Plant hoped to open Sin-til-Late in May at the former Studio 46 venue on Rodney Street but failed to gain a sexual entertainment licence.

In a report presented to the regulation committee in March, officers said they believed Mr Plant was “lacking in experience.”

However, the applicant described parts of the report as “unfair” and said they “put a skewed complexion on things.”

Wigan MP Lisa Nandy, who backed the campaign to block the application, said after the result: “This welcome decision will come as a relief to many people in Wigan who have contacted me about anti-social behaviour on King Street and the surrounding area.

“It will help the council’s ambitions of making Wigan town centre more family-friendly in the evenings.”