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Hackney residents win battle to block strip club at pub
Evening Standard 8 May 2008
Campaigners have won their battle to stop a strip club opening in a residential street.
More than 100 local people attended a meeting at Hackney Town Hall to voice their objection to an application by Satchmo's pub for a "sex encounter" licence.
Scott Davis, manger of Satchmo's, which is at the junction of Palatine Road and Stoke Newington Road, said he wanted to reinvent the venue as a "modern, stylish cocktail bar that offers adult entertainment and live music". But residents and local businesses said the proposal was inappropriate for the area and claimed a strip club would lead to more crime. More than 500 people objected in writing to Hackney council, a record for the local authority.
Resident Amanda Frayne, who represented more than 300 campaigners at the meeting, said: "Our victory shows that community is important and that communities have a right to fight for what they believe in."
