Vanity in Carlisle Street [LDRS]

PEDICABS are to blame for strip club customers getting fleeced of thousands of pounds in late-night scams, a marathon licensing hearing heard yesterday, Thursday.

Vanity in Carlisle Street, Soho, (pictured) has been shut for five months following breaches of “no-contact” conditions of its suspended licence.

Councillors on the licensing committee heard yesterday how the livelihoods of at least a dozen dancers, including one mother who is studying for a business degree, were on the line.

The bar’s former management team has been replaced and three dancers were suspended after a police probe found wrongdoing in the club.

Ten men complained more than £250,000 had been taken from their bank accounts in some sort of “spiking” scam connected to the venue.

But the Metropolitan Police Service has found no evidence of spiking or wrongdoing at the venue that has suggested the men may have reported the allegations in a bid to get money back through insurance.

Vanity’s barrister Gary Grant suggested it was the pedicabs who were ripping off Soho’s strip clubs, telling the meeting: “If a mosquito bites an elephant, you don’t shoot the elephant… The venues are victims of pedicabs. Go after the perpetrators.”

He added: “Pedicabs are a major issue in the whole of the West End. The council is plagued by them, and so is my client. It is not fair to blame my client for the pedicab issue in Soho. Closing us does not magically cure the pedicab issues of Soho.”

Objections to the licence being renewed had noted that “the only reason the pedicabs are in Carlisle Street is the presence of the club” and another said “the club had become a magnet for pedicabs”. Another said: “There was a blissful time during Covid when if you woke in the night there was silence in the street. Apart from Vanity there are no very late venues nearby.”

Yet another objector said that “the suggestion by the management of Vanity that complaints of this nature are often made to cover overspending and to get reimbursed by a bank is, frankly, ludicrous”.

The meeting heard that a 68-year-old with “impecc­able credentials”, who was “untarred with the problems of the past”, has been appointed as the new manager of the venue and will be on site “at all times”. A previous perfor­mer is the new dance manager, a role formerly known as the “house mother”.

Mr Grant said: “She is currently studying for a degree in business management and has a 10-year-old son. She relies on this work to keep her money for her family. If licence is taken away there will be 12 to 18 dancers who will lose primary income. When you talk to dancers, and ask ‘oh dear, are you being exploited?’ the inevitable answer is that we are not being exploited. They resent the patronising attitude that comes to bear on what they choose as adults to do.”

Mr Grant had said there was no direct evidence showing Vanity had taken unauthorised sums of money, pointing to a report from licensing consultant Andrew Bamber that showed how “large sums of cash” had been moved to a company that was not in any way connected to Vanity. They have questioned why police failed to make a proper investigation.

Police had released images to the committee of CCTV footage of men grabbing dancers’ private parts and kissing.

The chairman of the Westminster City Council committee, Robert Eagleton, said: “In the screenshots, there are instances when customers are trying to touch women’s genitals. They have to move their hands away. While it may be dancers who initiate breaches. It might be that they feel uncomfortable in the environment they are working in.”

A decision on the club licence renewal bid will be made next week.