About Lap Off!
Lap Off! is a campaign led by residents of Crouch End and surrounding areas to stop an application by the owners of the Music Palace to become a Lap Dancing bar, open until 2AM six days a week. The Music Palace have enlisted the help of a top West End lawyer to push this outrageous and idiotic proposal through. Councils are to some extent hamstrung by the current law, which refuses to classify lap dancing bars as ‘Sex encounter’ clubs – making it easy for some clubs to get a license. However, Haringey Council has a robust ‘Statement of Licensing Policy’ – you can find this on the Council’ website – providing them with ample scope to turn it down if they choose to – they say they will take into consideration a venue’s proximity to schools, places of worship, residential accommodation, community centres and youth clubs when considering a licence application – and this application is close to all of these.
The statement also concedes that ‘the carrying on of [adult entertainent] activities can provide the opportunity for prostitution, pimping, and other offences of a sexual nature’, something both the owners and their solicitor have dismissed as unfounded – they say these clubs are actually safer than regular nightclubs! – but Haringey Council appears to be in no doubt about the connection.
Lap Off! will last as long as it needs to.
About the Blog
The purpose of the blog is to keep people up to date with the campaign, and provide a serious and not so serious insight into the world of ‘Sex Encounter’ clubs. It does not necessarily represent the views of every member of Lap Off!
Lap Off! 
Please understand there are many reason to move to Crouch End, this include the outsides spaces, the pleasant population and above all The Broadway. Having lived all over London I find the smiles on faces, the quality of life and the feeling of safety make Crouch End a Top Five residential location.
The Broadway is the primary draw of Crouch End, already the Credit Crunch has caused The Broadway a number of casualties, including Woolworths: the council needs to face up to its’ responsibilities and, through our Council Tax, encourage retailers to progress the quality of this boutique paradise, not regress it. This type of ‘entertainment’ is welcome in London but in the entertainment areas. The residential village of Crouch End is not that.
Pls email everyone you know and lets make this the most public ‘No’ on the web.
I heard this campaign refered to as NIMBYism.
What’s wrong with NIMBYism? If you live in an area and want it to be nice, you’ve got every right to look out for the area. No one else is going to look after it on your behalf.
If there had been a little more nimbyism over the last few decades maybe there would be fewer eyesore buildings, fewer horrible concrete messes where people feel threatened and alienated, less vandalism, less ‘anti-social behaviour’.
I dunno, on the one hand you have people bitching about how we’re all so insular these days, on the other you have people screaming ‘nimby!’ the minute someone has the temerity to object to some seedy sex club opening in their community. Look around you, for the love of God – like calls to like and the minute someone commits one act of social or environmental vandalism, another ten are sure to follow.
I have nothing but respect for people who are willing to put time and effort into maintaining an inviting and inclusive envrironment; like many people I’m guilty of putting my head down and hurrying past the litter and the used condoms and the ‘private shops’ and thinking how degraded and depressing it all is but not actually moving to do anything about it.