Gwynedd: Sex shops licence fee doubled by council

Gwynedd Council said it had underestimated the cost of processing sex shop licences

Sex shop licensing fees are being doubled in north Wales after a council said they were priced too cheaply.

Gwynedd Council said it was not recouping costs as it underestimated the cost of processing them.

It had cost £560 for a new licence and £505 for a renewal. Each of those will now be £1,184.

Fees for sexual entertainment venues were priced at £2,109 for applications and £2,109 for renewals, but Gwynedd does not have any strip clubs.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, at a meeting on Monday, council environment chief Gareth Jones said: "All we can recover is processing costs, we can't be seen to be making any money from this."

He said the original sex shop licence fee "did not come close to us recovering our costs".

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Councillor Gwynfor Owen accepted the reason for the fees but wanted to know what a sex shop was.

He said: "There is nothing in the report to explain 'what is a sex shop? We need to know the definition before we can vote one way or the other."

Gwynfor Owen wanted a definition of the term sex shop before a vote was held

Monitoring officer Iwan Evans said: "A sex shop is a shop where more than 30% of the business is designated for selling sex equipment rather than just clothing."

Councillors unanimously approved the recommendations for setting the fees.

Despite the price hike, Gwynedd council is not the most expensive place to open a sex shop.

A report noted fees varied from £989 for a licence in Flintshire, £1,655 in Conwy and up to £6,250 in Denbighshire.

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