Sexual Entertainment Venue Licensing

Overview

Aberdeen City Council

Consultation on the Licensing of Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs)

Introduction

The Scottish Government has introduced legislation giving Councils a discretionary power to licence Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs) in their area.

What is an SEV?

A Sexual Entertainment Venue (SEV) is defined as any premises at which sexual entertainment is provided before a live audience, and the most common examples are lap dancing or strip clubs. However, the definition is sufficiently wide to cover other premises where sexual entertainment is provided. Premises where sexual entertainment is provided on no more than 4 occasions in a twelve-month period are not to be treated as a sex entertainment venue e.g. premises that cater for the occasional stag or hen do.

Current Position

Currently in Scotland SEVs don’t require to be specifically licensed to provide sexual entertainment. However, some of these premises are already licensed in terms of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 as they also sell alcohol.

Consideration – Whether to Licence SEVs or Not?

Aberdeen City Council need to decide whether to pass a resolution requiring SEVs to be licensed in the City, and therefore seek your views on this.

The Licensing Committee meeting on 3 December 2019 will consider the responses received to this consultation and make a decision whether to license SEVs or not.

If following this consultation, the Council decide to licence SEVs in Aberdeen City, this resolution will come into force 12 months later at which point anyone operating a SEV will have to apply for a licence.

During this 12-month period the Council will have to carry out further consultation, draft and publish an SEV Policy Statement which will explain how they will carry out this licensing function and make decisions in their area. The second consultation will seek public views about what the Policy Statement should contain.   This will deal with other questions such as localities, maximum number of premises and suchlike.

However, if the Council decide not to licence SEVs, then any premises or organiser providing sexual entertainment would not require to be licensed and could open or continue to operate without any specific regulation for this activity.

Consultation

Aberdeen City Council’s Licensing Committee would like to know your views on whether we should have a licensing system for SEVs.  Please read the undernoted privacy notice prior to submitting your response for information on how your data will be used.

Please complete the form by 21 NOVEMBER 2019