Larger text size Very large text size The patrons of an outback club previously taken to court for offering lap dances without a permit will again be able to pay for them legally. The Club of Mt Isa is a bar, bistro, nightclub and bottle shop near the north-west Queensland mining town's centre. The Club of Mt Isa is set to host adult entertainment again. Credit:File The Commissioner for Liquor and Gaming rejected the club's application for an adult entertainment license on the grounds its director, Noel Hagan, was an improper person to run it and a licence would be bad for the nearby community.
It pointed to 66 police callouts to the club in a little more than a year and several more serious individual incidents. Advertisement These included a massive brawl in the early hours of November 10, , and a disturbance four months earlier, which led to two members of the public and two staff members being arrested.
The club had an adult entertainment permit from to but the commissioner rejected its application for a new one in In an appeal to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Mr Hagan said he understood it was not "adult entertainment", which he said was referred to in the legislation as "an act of explicit sexual nature".
According to a judgment released recently, the director said he had received advice from various sources including the commissioner's website that so long as the genitalia of the performers remained covered it was not regarded as adult entertainment. In response to concerns about public amenity, he argued many of the incidents didn't stem from the club but from the cab rank directly outside. He said in the case of the person brawl, only 10 customers were in the club in that timeframe so most of the brawlers could not have been patrons.
That was the principal reason for the refusal of the grant of his permit in Mr Hagan has not responded to a call for comment.
