LOCAL Labour MP Roberta Blackman-Woods has been campaigning to change licensing laws around lapdancing clubs. Due to a loophole in the law, lapdancing clubs are licensed in the same way as cafes and karaoke nights.

Lapdancing clubs are part of the sex industry. They make it normal to objectify and treat women as sex objects. Areas around lapdancing clubs can often become "no-go" areas for women. Such clubs can affect whole communities and change the character of a town or city, yet at present only those who live within a 100-200metre radius of the club can object to a licence.

Lapdancing clubs should be licensed in the same way as sex shops and cinemas as sex encounter establishments. This would give our community a greater say over whether we want lapdancing clubs in Sunderland and would give the council greater controls.

The Government has recognised the loophole and has written to every local authority in England asking them whether they would support lapdance clubs being recategorised as sex encounter establishments.
I urge residents who support this change to write to Sunderland City Council and make their voices heard.
Bridget Phillipson,
Barmston Close,
Washington

Have a go yourself
SO the chief constable wants us to have a go at thugs and miscreants.
Well pardon me but not so long ago we were told don't have a go. What's changed?

Is Northumbria Police going to give us stab vests for the purpose? To me it's since the do-gooders came along and said "you can't give a child a clip" and corporal punishment was withdrawn from schools that violent or yob behaviour got worse.

Cue the namby-pamby brigade "If you hit a child now they will think it's OK to hit someone else". Well who's teaching them it's OK now? These thugs hunt in packs but when they're on their own are a lot different.

Humiliation of corporal punishment in front of fellow pupils would soon knock out the "spirit" of these yobs!

If I have a go I know who would get locked up – not the career criminal with a string of convictions no, the law-abiding citizen who stands up for right and wrong.

Gather all those 16 to 24 without a job, not at university or studying vocationally, train them and send them to Afghanistan – rather then losing our brave young men and women fighting for us, we may get the fight out of these young yobs while reducing unemployment.

As for your argument about getting in a car or taking tablets, that we constantly take risks well, I think you may have lost the plot there, old son.

So Mr Craik – give us something back – corporal punishment and national service and fair laws that really do punish criminals and not the innocent or stab vests, then I might have a go – until then, you're on your own mate!
Pete Bogg,
East Boldon

Standing up to yobs
I READ an article in the Echo with amazement. Northumbria Police Chief Mike Craik says members of the public should stand up to yobs and antisocial behaviour despite the risks. According to him we all get in the car and one or two of us is going to die. The less said about that the better.

This is a job for the police to protect folk from knives and drunken antisocial behaviour that is what they are paid to do. How many innocent members of the public have been killed over the years standing up to drunken yobs?

I for one would not want to be as dead hero, trying to stop a bank robbery. I would have to stand up to someone being attacked or robbed but that is what any decent person would do, Mike Craik.

I certainly would think twice about going around standing up to drunken yobs, with our barbaric and shocking UK rising gun and knife culture.
Peter Kerr,
Fulwell,
Sunderland

Soothing voices
BEFORE I send my mother and my wife out on to the mean steets to tackle knife-wielding yobs and drunken louts (Mr Craik did say that the sound of women's voices has more effect on louts than men's voices, didn't he), can Mr Craik let us taxpayers know how many arrests his female police officers above the rank of PC have made in the last six months?
I suspect that the average arrest rate among this group is very low, yet Mr Craik wants the public to tackle criminals.
Billy Dane,
Sunderland


MY thanks to Ian Laws for a superb piece of sports reporting on the Sunderland v Vitoria match in Portugal. Readers could feel they were actually there, witnessing the triumphs and blunders with him at the pitchside (more blunders than triumphs I'm afraid in this one!), sharing in his dismay/delight (more dismay!). He paints an excellent word picture and I enjoy everything he writes. Keep up the good work Ian and thanks for keeping us up to date with our beloved footie.
Kate Burley,
Cleadon Meadows,
Cleadon

ON July 17 we enjoyed an excellent concert at the Customs House, South Shields, Todd Miller and the Joe Loss Orchestra. It was an entertaining event, played to a full house. Why can't we have this orchestra back playing at the Sunderland Empire? They came once a year for many years to a full house. People must be getting sick of repeat performances of musicals every year. I am sure many people would be thrilled to hear In The Mood again.
Still In The Mood,
Middle Herrington

ARE Ann Gouge of Chilton Moor and Iris Boyd of Go North East, not aware that in old English the word worm meant dragon, so the Lambton Worm would have legs!
The Brown Knight,
Sunderland