Strip club given permission to lower entry age

Flirtz co-owner Amanda Cropper said the club had struggled since the Covid pandemic

A strip club has been granted permission to drop the minimum age of customers from 21 to 18, despite concerns from police.

Flirtz, which has operated from Friar Lane in Nottingham since 2007, has also been allowed to extend its opening hours and allow full nudity in parts of the venue.

However, Nottingham City Council rejected a request to relax rules on the number of security staff.

Flirtz's co-owner Amanda Cropper said changes were needed because it had struggled to compete with online subscription services such as OnlyFans since the Covid pandemic.

The entrance to Flirtz off Friar Lane

"A lot of dancers have gone online, they do webcam work," she said.

A meeting of the city council's regulatory and appeals committee on Tuesday heard how the changes would help the club attract dancers because they can earn more from fully nude dances.

Nottinghamshire Police said it believed under-21s should not be allowed in full nudity areas.

Police licensing enforcement officer John Bolton said: "For some of these students, university life is the first time away from their family home, and as such they can often be socially immature.

"Permitting these individuals access to a premises that will potentially offer full nudity adult entertainment causes the police concern."

Ms Cropper told the BBC she is not trying to attract students, and that the lower age limit is to accommodate larger groups like stag parties, which they sometimes have to turn away.

She said: "Last week we had quite a large group. I think there was a 19-year-old with them and they couldn't come in because they wouldn't leave the 19-year-old behind, so it caused a bit of an argument on the door.

"It's creating problems rather than solving them."

The new licence was granted at a regulatory meeting at Nottingham City Council

Leo Charalambides, Flirtz's barrister, told the meeting the existing age restrictions were "discriminatory" and "ageist" towards 18, 19, and 20-year-olds, who were also not allowed to work in the club.

"These are young people that can vote, that can have sex at the age of 16, that can buy cigarettes, drive a car," he said.

"For some reason, that is not evidence-based, the police and your council seek to restrict their access to what is a lawful activity."

Paul Stimson, barrister for Nottinghamshire Police, said it stood by its comments.

"Whilst it's not a hard-and-fast rule, we are entitled to say that those of more tender years are more likely to be less mature," he said.

The club also asked to be allowed to set its own level of door staff depending on circumstances, rather than having three per shift, which the committee rejected.

Committee chair Audrey Dinnal said: "We are concerned that variation of entry conditions and allowing full nudity will increase the number of persons. Therefore, we don't vary the security conditions."

Ms Cropper said she was "disappointed" as she believed there was no need for more than two.

"We shouldn't come under the classification of nightclub, we're quite unique and we don't hit the capacity that's been set for us," she said.

It was acknowledged, however, that the club had already been operating with two door staff since the pandemic despite the previous licence requiring three.

Mr Charalambides said he accepted this was a "technical breach" but it was an "informal amendment which has turned into practice" and had not caused any issues.

Nottingham City Council has been approached for further comment.