All a café or restaurant owner needs to do to turn his establishment into a strip club is fit in a pole and hire some dancers.
According to industry leaders, who preferred to remain anonymous, the situation is so lax that owners can literally change their establishment into a gentlemen’s club without even having to inform the authorities.
“There aren’t any rules and the way the industry is run reflects this,” one source, involved in the so-called gentlemen’s club sector, told the Times of Malta.
He was lamenting the situation after he last week decided to leave a 10-year career in the strip club industry.
“The venues change from nightclubs to strip clubs so quickly because all you need to do is a slight refurbishment, install a pole, and you’re good to go. I know of a catering establishment that became a strip club overnight,” he said.
The lack of adequate regulations and checks, however, could soon become a thing of the past as a broad reform of Paceville legislation and enforcement is expected, for the first time, to touch upon the issue of gentlemen’s clubs.
The reform was launched by the government after 74 clubbers, among them several underage youths, were injured in a stampede in a Paceville nightclub last month.
The club’s glass banister railing collapsed during the mass exit, sending several youths tumbling more than a storey into the underlying gentlemen’s club. The incident raised concerns about health and safety measures as well as the level of enforcement in place in the nightlife ‘mecca’.
The gentlemen’s clubs, offering private strip shows and lap dances, have mushroomed in the clubbing district in recent years, taking over from many established bars and nightclubs and, in turn, creating a new nightlife market altogether.
I know of a catering establishment that became a strip club overnight
The clubs are a favourite with foreign visitors and Maltese patrons alike, particularly as they stay open well into the earlier hours of the morning.
But despite their popularity, the adult-only venues are not regulated by their own legislation and are treated simply as “catering establishments” by the Malta Tourism Authority which is tasked with inspecting them. The authority’s Catering Establishments Regulations set the standards for all Paceville establishments. The only problem is that the gentlemen’s clubs are not listed as such on the MTA’s register of Paceville venues. Instead, they are listed as bars, cafés and, in some cases, even restaurants.
Government sources said that while the Paceville reform was still in its initial stages, discussions on how to regulate strip clubs had begun and were being taken “seriously”.
Earlier this year the government launched a public consultation on the morality laws that often land the clubs in hot water. Numerous cases have been filed against strip club owners and performers, as the dances are seen as breaching public decency legislation.
The consultation was finalised several months ago. However, questions sent on what action had been taken were not replied to by the time of writing.
Meanwhile, the government is also meant to have reviewed a set of recommendations drafted by the Attorney General on how to best legislate the sector.
The recommendations were handed over to Cabinet in 2014, however, it is not clear what came out of them.