The owner and the manager of a gentlemen's club in Paceville have been acquitted of running a brothel, allowing their establishment to be used for immoral acts and employing persons without a licence.

Joseph Zammit, 38, of St Julians and club manager Duncan Fenech, 36, of Mġarr, were arraigned in 2011.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras said there was no evidence to show that on the day in question there was erotic dancing in the club Private, other than one dance for which the dancer had been fined.

The Magistrate said however that immoral acts remained immoral, and they could not be considered as moral just because they happened in a gentleman's club.

She called for this industry to be regulated as it was growing. Despite the immorality, such activity should no longer be considered illegitimate once they were regulated by proper legislation which ensured there was no abuse or exploitation.

In October 2011 an erotic dancer at the club was fined €150 for indecent exposure after she bared her breasts to a customer at the club as a police officer walked in.

Romanian Daniela Dinu, 25, had testified that she had only been in Malta for a week when she was caught inside the Private Club within the Plush Wine Bar in Paceville.

The director of the club, Joseph Zammit, 38, of St Julians and club manager Duncan Fenech, 36, of Mġarr, had nothing to do with her decision to bare her breasts and she took the decision out of her own free will, she said.

She was not a prostitute, she added.

The dancer said that the exposure lasted only a few seconds and at that precise moment, a policeman, Superintendent Stephen Gatt, walked in and saw her.

She was employed as a dancer and would do two types of dancing. The first was dancing on a stage and the second was doing what is known as table dances where a client would specifically ask for a private dance.

On the night in question, she had given two table dances to the same client and in an attempt to entice him to pay for a third, she exposed her breasts, she said.

The club had notices on the door explaining that patrons over 21 years of age could enter and this notice was also repeated on all the tables. Clients entered voluntarily, and were not allowed to touch her. To get to the area in which she performed the private dance, one had to go past a thick curtain and then onto a single sofa which was then covered by a transparent curtain.

Lawyers Joe Giglio, Shazoo Ghaznavi and Robert Galea appeared for the men.