LOCALS are fuming over plans to open a strip club in their posh town – saying it will harm their kids.
A strip club which offers “full nudity” for VIPs has applied to open a venue in the heart of London’s West End – but residents fear the move will turn their posh neighbourhood into “Britain’s Red Light district”.
Locals say the club will make their area ‘seedy’
Residents worry the club will encourage ‘loud drunk’ men to the neighbourhood
The club has plans to provide ‘premium’ entertainment for both male and female clients
The Penthouse Club, which has venues in the United States, Australia, and Russia, wants to open a new site in Walker’s Court, Soho – where it will showcase “striptease, nude performances, pole dancing, and adult theatrics”.
Bosses say they want to provide a “premium” entertainment experience which is “unlike any existing venue in London” – and hope to attract both male and female clients.
However, locals have criticised the plans – saying such an establishment will only cater to “loud, drunk” men and will signify Soho’s return to the “seedy red-light district of yore”.
One disgruntled local said: “Soho is no longer the seedy red-light district of yore. Of course, numerous sexual entertainment venues still exist.
“But how can it be appropriate to add a new full nudity strip bar right at the defining heart of the neighbourhood?
“Is this the direction in which we want Soho to travel?”
Another expressed concern for the local children – noting that the new strip venue would be only “a stone’s throw” away from the Soho Parish Primary School.
The local said: “It’s not rocket science that the higher the concentration of sex entertainment venues in one locality/street/area, the greater the risk of crime and disorder.
“Thus, if more strip clubs are added, Westminster Council is exposing children to harm rather than protecting them [from it].”
A third resident added that the venue would simply attract “male, drunk, loud groups” who bring “disruption” and the potential for “fights and trouble”.
They said Westminster Council risks “destroying” Soho with more late night entertainment, arguing that “this type of establishment” is a “very backwards step” in 2025.
One resident, whose lived in the area for two decades, said the situation has reached a “crisis point”.
They claimed the strip club would “draw even more crime and prostitution into an area where night-crime is already the worst in the country”.
“I am regularly approached by pimps and dealers wishing to sell drugs or guide me towards prostitutes or strip bars,” they added.
However, The Penthouse Club, owned by businessman John Kirkendoll, has argued that adult entertainment venues “have a very long history within Soho’s nightlife“.
A spokesperson for the club said it is inaccurate to “assume there remains a ‘concentration’ of such venues” – and even claimed Soho is “losing its distinctiveness, becoming more bland and homogenous in its night-time offer”.
Meanwhile, one local couple also offered their support for the application, stating that The Penthouse Club seems to be “a professional, well-designed venue” which is not a “reversion to the old style clip joints that plagued this area”.
So far, Westminster Licensing Committee has received nine objections to the proposal – and two letters of support.
The Penthouse Club plans to open seven days a week, operating between 10am and 3am from Monday to Saturday and between 12pm and 10:30pm on Sundays.
Customers will pay an entry fee of around £25 – or can opt to reserve a table ahead of the evening for a minimum of £125 per person.
Performances will take place throughout the club, with those on the main stage “intended to be of high production value”.
These will include burlesque shows, acrobatics performances, and dance routines which are said to be of ‘Cirque du Soleil quality’.
‘Table-side’ dancing will be performed to guests seated at tables or in VIP rooms – but bosses have stressed that there should be “no sexual contact” between customers and performers.
The exchange of either money or tokens, to be done at the beginning and end of a performance, is the only “permissible physical contact”.
Performances on the main stage or at tables may feature ‘semi-nudity’, but ‘full nudity’ will only take place in VIP rooms.
The Penthouse Club have been approached for comment.
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