LICENCE TO DANCE
lap dancing. Dancers expressed practical concerns about facilities, relations with management and financial arrangements in the workplace. Most dancers were concerned about the high house fees, commissions and fines they were paying; especially on occasions when they were taking relatively little money home. Seventy per cent of respondents said they had left a shift without earning any money. The research took place at a pivotal time in which all Local Authorities were re-writing their policy on licensing lap dancing as a result of changes introduced under the Policing and Crime Act, 2010. A new classification of Sexual Entertainment Venue (SEV) has been introduced, aligning the licensing process of lap-dancing clubs with sex shops and cinemas. Further changes essentially give Local
Authorities greater powers to control the number of clubs, by using quotas or introducing ‘nil policies’ which aim to remove existing clubs or prohibit new licences. New powers also mean that Licensing Committees have the ability to impose certain conditions on licences to dictate how they operate. There was a strong feeling expressed by dancers that the legal changes introduced under SEV licensing would not make the industry safer or that their welfare and working conditions would be taken seriously by the new legislation. Instead they felt that assumptions were being made about exploitation, particularly gender exploitation, and that legislation favoured community’s views over dancers’. Investigation of this latter point led to ESRC
Follow-on-Funding awarded in November 2011. Towards the end of the initial project we had to
Dancers reported high levels of job satisfaction and described both advantages and disadvantages of their work
(in association with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust), and self employment rights and tax-awareness information (written in partnership with HMRC). These materials will form the basis of workshops with dancers and managers to try to increase knowledge, rights and good practice. The other substantial aim of the project is to
work specifically with Local Authorities to share the findings with licensing and enforcement officers, and to demonstrate how new conditions that prioritise dancers’ welfare at work can be written into policies. At the start of the project we identified a small
number of Local Authorities to whom researchers had presented the findings who were beginning to include conditions related to dancers’ welfare, safety and working conditions into policies and licences. For example, Leeds City Council now requires licence holders to provide a welfare pack to new dancers in the changing rooms. This pack must include: a copy of the Sex Establishment License, including the conditions applied by the Licensing Committee; details of any other conditions applied by management of the premises; details of how to report crime to the relevant authority; details of insurance (public liability/personal); details of unions, trade organisations or other bodies that represent the interests of dancers/entertainers; a copy of the code of practice for entertainers; a copy of the code of conduct for customers; fining policy and pricing policy. Blackpool Council has also taken the research findings seriously. In response to the issue of high competition and limited custom, their new SEV policy now includes a maximum number of dancers employed on any one night, which is calculated as no more than ten per cent of the total club occupancy. The council has also responded to concerns
some degree been able to share findings with licensing practitioners about the socio-economic profile of dancers, their experiences and views. Some authorities began to consider how they could address some of the issues related to dancer welfare, safety and working conditions but there was clearly a need for more dissemination of the findings to licensing practitioners and committees who are developing SEV policies often with little information about the sector and particularly dancers’ experiences. The follow-on project also found that dancers needed more information, and this led to the development of a website and smartphone application that contains safety advice at work
about the fairness of codes of conduct/house rules by requiring that a club’s codes of conduct should include a system to ensure that performers who are sick or have a domestic emergency ‘are not made subject to unfair punitive financial penalties’. We are continuing to work with the Institute of Licensing to share our findings with as many licensing officials as possible. We hope the project will inform small changes in policy which could lead to a significant change in the treatment of dancers and sharing of good practice in the industry. n
i
The Regulatory Dance: Investigating the Structural Integration of Sexual Consumption into the Night- Time Economy Dr Teela Sanders and Rosie Campbell, School of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Leeds Email
t.l.m.sanders@
leeds.ac.uk Email
r.campbell@
leeds.ac.uk Telephone 0113 3434 714 Web
www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/research/projects/ regulatory-dance.php ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-3163
SPRING 2012 SOCIETY NOW 25
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