‘You only need to install a pole and you’re good to go’

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...