Lancaster club to shut 'in solidarity' with spiking boycott

Managers at the Sugarhouse said they wanted to "stand in solidarity" with an anti-spiking protest

A student union's nightclub will close on Wednesday to "stand in solidarity" with a nationwide protest over drink-spiking, its owners have said.

Campaign group Girls Night In has organised a boycott of clubs on the night in cities across the UK.

Lancaster's The Sugarhouse said it will use the closure to train staff about how to deal with suspected spikings.

The club, which is run by Lancaster University Students' Union, will reopen as usual on Friday.

Lancashire Police said three women were targeted in spiking attacks in nearby Preston at the weekend and victims in Liverpool and Manchester have also recently come forward.

Lancaster University student Amy Traynor told BBC Radio Lancashire that she and her friends were "too scared to go out on a night out anymore".

Ms Traynor, who lives in Preston, said the attacks were "really worrying", adding that some of her friends had "past experiences of being spiked".

"They hadn't noticed until the next day... where there was a gap in their memory and they realised they weren't drinking that much so not sure how that happened," she said.

Preston's Business Improvement District manager Mark Whittle said businesses would be discussing the issue on Wednesday.

He added that he wanted "venues to talk to each other and to ban perpetrators for life".

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