XX CLOSED S1 2BS Spearmint Rhino, Sheffield

[zante]

60, Brown Street, Sheffield.
Tel: 01142 798092

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Still trading, despite claims to the contrary by radfem activists.

Website: https://www.spearmintrhino.com/location/sheffield/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhinosheffield

[Victor23]

Women's Grid

Ten days to go - £5,065 pledged of £7,500 stretch target by 127 people.

[pleasure_seeker]

Sheffield strip club protesters granted judicial review

Guardian report

[Victor23]

University objects to licence renewal

The anti-ism in Sheffield is growing. See this

other thread.

[Victor23]

£10k reached in fighting fund

Now the aim is for £25k.

The High Court hearing is set for June 28.

There are of course implications for the stripping industry throughout the country.

We have three threads touching on this subject: this, the Spearmint Rhino Sheffield one, and recently "Stacey Clare of ELSC on Sunday Politics".

I suggest future updates are added to this one, but am happy to accept Brute's decision .

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

This Twitter feed of events at the council hearing on Tuesday into Spearmint Rhino's licence renewal, from PhD researcher 'Rosa Deluxemburg', makes interesting reading:

https://twitter.com/RosaVince9/status/1 ... 9456403456


To summarise, it looks as though Spearmint Rhino's continued operation on its current site conflicts with Sheffield City Council's plans for the area - the Hallam 'master plan' - from which Sheffield Hallam University may also stand to benefit financially. The 'antis' (representatives of Not Buying It, Women's Equality Party and some others) have presented some spurious 'evidence' of sexual discrimination, along with their usual tenuous nonsense attempting to link striptease with sexual violence, and other meaningless soundbites. None of the dancers (some of whom were sitting in the public gallery for the hearing) had been canvassed on their views or experiences of working at the club, it would seem.



Echoes of Tower Hamlets circa 2011-2012?

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Just to clarify, the meeting I referred to above was the Licensing Subcommittee meeting of the 19/06/18 - agenda and relevant reports via the link below:

http://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/ieLis ... 5&MId=6975

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Well, Spearmint Rhino has had its licence renewed, as was right and proper:

Spearmint Rhino's licence renewed by councillors (Sheffield Star, 21/06/18)


Note the fake concern about workers' rights from the 'antis' - some of them from as far away as Cheltenham - none of whom actually spoke to any of the dancers!

In marked contrast, here's an open letter in support of the dancers and their right to be consulted about their working conditions:

https://platform.organise.org.uk/campai ... -spearmint

[Victor23]

Makes sense. Good news that Spearmint Rhino had its licence reviewed.

Google "Irene Gladdison", who describes herself as "a 54-year-old grandma, with five grandchildren", and you'll find several articles in her name, including

this one

Many of the appended comments are sensible, including this one "So on the one hand she bemoans the city's unlimited strip club policy then tells us on the other hand that there is actually one strip club in a city of 576,000 people. One doth protest too much."

Comment by

Stripping the Illusion

Chagrin from Notbuyingit

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

I opened the link to the article in the Independent, and came across this paragraph:

"I and many others think that strip clubs are harmful to both women and men, and are not the kind of places that we want within our communities. Research shows that strip clubs are linked to increased harassment, as well as women not feeling safe around these sites at night."


Within it is a link to the following 'report':

Adult Entertainment or Exploitation (Women's Support Project [sic] - 8 pages, PDF format)


Well, my jaw practically hit the floor, before I burst out with laughter - they've quoted the Lilith (Eaves), Bindel and Holsopple reports under 'facts'!!!

Essentially, the 'report' I've linked to above is a copy-and-paste exercise in cherrypicked quotes about the striptease industry, almost all from its opponents, that's heavy on anecdote and lacking in relevant data.

For those unfamiliar with the source material of many of the quotes:

* The Lilith (Eaves) 2003 report - 'Lap Dancing and Striptease in the Borough of Camden' was debunked circa 2011-2012 as having been based on doctored data, and was removed from the Eaves website some time afterwards, presumably for this reason;

* The Bindel 2004 report - 'Profitable Exploits: Lap Dancing in the UK' was essentially a series of anecdotes strung together, with much of it having not even been based on Bindel's own research;

* The Holsopple 1998 report - 'Stripclubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence' is based on research into strip clubs in the USA, with a different business model to those in the UK, 20-odd years ago.


The radfems are trying to play the general public for mugs again, and are serving up 'evidence' that was discredited years ago!

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

P.S. You'll notice that I merged the thread regarding the crowdfunded judicial review with the main Spearmint Rhino thread, to make the information easier for people to find.

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Comment by

Stripping the Illusion

Chagrin from Notbuyingit

I've just had a look at the Not Buying It link, and...wow, that's straight out of the Object playbook, prior to 2012!

Have these people learned nothing in the meantime?!

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

And for those of you with short memories, here's a little reminder of Object's stock tactics and rhetoric from that period:

http://strippingtheillusion.blogspot.co ... viour.html


How d'ya like me now, Sasha Rakoff?

[TonyN]

They poked the bear and it is their own fault we are awake. The No buying Sheffield twitter account is easy to wind up and look forward to prodding them when they slip (which will be way to often).

Looks whose back baby. Too much going on and whilst I have a lot of google alerts I can miss stuff so hopefully you guys will keep me on my toes.

[Victor23]

...The High Court hearing is set for June 28...

In fact I've seen three dates quoted in the increasing number of articles on the situation: the 25th, 26th and 28th.


Lawyers' webpage

"A judge has now ruled that she [Irene Gladdison??]has an arguable case the Council acted unlawfully in not looking at the negative impact on women properly when deciding on the new policy, and that they ignored important evidence presented by local people, including our client."

Let us hope that the Spearmint Rhino team will cross-examine some of the local people who presented "evidence".

(Perhaps Metropolis has been prescient in having traditional strip and LGBT evenings to equalise their entertainment, though of course for full equality they need to include straight male strippers.)

The antis now say they need to raise £30K ...

[Victor23]

The Spearmint Rhino building appears to be for sale.

And Googling leads to publicity for

this male stripping event there in October

and

this supportive letter.

More positive comments.

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

The Spearmint Rhino building appears to be for sale.

Hmm - redevelopment master plan for the area, club premises up for sale...what are the chances that loss of the SEV licence would make the club less attractive to prospective buyers, and potentially drive down the price?

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Then again, as it's the freehold of the building that's up for sale with Spearmint Rhino as a sitting tenant (as a friend pointed out to me), there's always the possibility of a new owner 'doing a White Horse' and driving up the rent exponentially, in order to force them out and replace them with another business. I guess the obvious thing to do is to watch the money trail...

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Here are a couple of pictures (courtesy of Ian White) from outside of Tuesday's meeting, of the supporters and opponents of Spearmint Rhino's licence renewal. Can any of you spot any differences between the two groups?

20180619 Spearmint Rhino Sheffield supporters.png (1.11 MiB) Viewed 24171 times

20180619 Spearmint Rhino Sheffield opponents.png (1.17 MiB) Viewed 24171 times

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Chasmal's take on Tuesday's meeting, courtesy of the Stripping The Illusion blog:

https://strippingtheillusion.blogspot.c ... ction.html


The title of the article refers to this pair of tweets in particular:

Trashy SWERFs naive young chickens.JPG (31.47 KiB) Viewed 24163 times

Along with some other attempts by the radfem abolitionists to dismiss the views of feminist supporters of Spearmint Rhino based on their youth:

Critical Sisters brats #1.JPG (48.23 KiB) Viewed 24163 times

Critical Sisters brats #2.JPG (22.56 KiB) Viewed 24163 times

[Victor23]

I shouldn't say this, really I shouldn't, but given some of the name-calling by the antis I shall. What a lot of sour-faced women the antis are. Could it be that they are jealous of women who are attractive to men ...

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Ya reckon, Victor23?

Mind you, what struck me most was the patronising ageism and obvious undertow of resentment.

[Victor23]

Several days this week have been given as dates for the hearing. I've just spotted this on Women'sGrid:

It's this Thursday! Leeds High Court!

Where Sheffield's 'no limit' policy on Strip Clubs is put to the Equality test in a Court of Law. Donations still hugely appreciated here

See you there from 10 AM outside Leeds Combined Court

Details : 10am - 4.30pm, Leeds Combined Court, 1 Oxford Row, Leeds LS1 3BG

(we will only know the court room the day before)

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

For those of you who don't wish to give WomensGrid web traffic, the court schedule for the following day at Leeds can be found here:

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/court ... list-leeds


Judicial reviews are heard in administrative courts, of which Leeds is the closest. Details of Leeds Combined Court Centre:

https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov ... urt-centre


More information about the administrative court system in England and Wales:

https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/adm ... tive-court