Detail from a leaflet for The Penthouse Club

THE Penthouse Club plan to open a strip joint in the former Madame JoJo’s venue will reverse years of progress in Soho and create a “nightmare” for residents, a licensing meeting heard yesterday, Thursday.

The US firm has submitted an application for an SEV, sexual entertainment venue, licence in Walker’s Court that was heard by the Westminster City Council committee.

The Penthouse Club would showcase nude and semi-nude performances, acrobatics, burlesque and pole-dancing until 3am Monday to Saturday.

Conrad Roeber, who lives opposite in Brewer Street, said in the years since Jojo’s closed the area had become increasingly busy.

Mr Roeber said Soho had been casting off its image as “sleaze” capital and was becoming a destination for fashion.

He said: “It is a nightmare already for us. You are probably familiar with my face.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. Obviously when we moved to Soho, we knew we were moving to Soho. That doesn’t mean Soho’s character can’t change, it has been changing. To reverse that direction of travel will be a grave mistake.

“I cannot understand why the police haven’t objected to this, it must be an anomaly.”

People with money to spend were looking for titillation at the end of the evening, plus drugs.

To think such a new venture wouldn’t increase those kinds of customers, was “for the birds” he told councillors, and added: “It will increase the pedicabs that go and get the street drug pushers. You will increase the number of people leaving at three in the morning. I just want you to be aware that is what we are dealing with.”

In December Mr Roeber told Extra: “Soho is already full. People who go to strip bars are generally inebriated. It will create more nuisance in what is a residential neighbourhood. Soho is a village. There are limits to how much activity there can be here.

“The worry is that you are rebranding Soho to where it was in the dark ages, before women’s lib, before feminism. Before #METOO.”

In a highly unusual move, the Metropolitan Police Service did not object to the licence application.

For context, the force has objected to a café opening in the basement of St Anne’s Church because of its potential impact on the night-time economy.

The venue licence application is from Soho Prime Entertainment Ltd, which is wholly owned by Kirkendoll Management LLC in New Orleans.

The company, set up by John Kirkendoll, said it has an “unparalleled experience in running world-class hospitality venues in the United States”.

The firm runs strip and lap-dancing clubs in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Florida and Perth, Australia, and is the master licensor for Penthouse-branded goods around the world.

The bid had stated: “John has assembled a trusted and expert management team for this new venture, The Penthouse Club in Soho.”

Madame JoJo’s, once owned by Paul Raymond, opened in the 1960s and was the centre of London cabaret for over half-a-century.

It was forced to close in 2014 when Westminster City Council withdrew its licence after it emerged bouncers had baseball bats hidden in bin liners ready for action.

In 2022 landlord Soho Estates signalled that a new Madame JoJo’s club would open at the venue in a venture run by Simon Hammerstein, the grandson of the renowned Hollywood composer Oscar Hammerstein.

The Soho Society has objected to the Penthouse licence application.

The committee is due to make its decision in the coming week.