City’s sole lap-dancing club seeks to renew its licence

YORK’S ONLY lap-dancing club is hoping to have its licence renewed by councillors next week.

Club 55, which is on the first floor of well-known nightspot Ziggy’s, has applied for permission to carry on running as a sexual-entertainment venue.

It would allow the club to continue operating as a sex establishment from 9pm to 3am, Monday

to Sunday, and from 6pm to 4.30am on York Racecourse meeting days.

A sex-establishment licence is valid for 12 months, so must be renewed annually.

No objections to the renewal were received during the consultation period.

Ziggy’s, a famous York nightclub of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, reopened last year.

The Micklegate venue had been running as Mansion Nightclub for eight years, when the premises included a lap-dancing club upstairs.

But Mansion closed in 2019 after failing to renew its tenancy.

York Council’s licensing policy states there should be a maximum of two sexual entertainment venues in the city centre, providing they do not have an impact on properties nearby.

A report to councillors states that Club 55 is York’s only sexual entertainment venue.

Black Orchid, in Toft Green, had its sex-establishment licence renewed in November 2020, despite being boarded up at the time.

Plans have been submitted to turn the site, the former home of Fibbers, into a new live music venue.

At a meeting of the licensing and regulatory committee on Wednesday, councillors will also review the council’s licensing policy for 2022 to 2027.

Ziggy’s first opened in 1982. When it reopened, the club announced it had had “a massive reboot to fit in with the demands of the modern-day clubgoer”.