Residents in Hampshire and town throughout the United Kingdom could get greater control over the running of adult lap-dancing clubs if a campaign to class them under the same tight laws as sex shops is successful.
Currently venues where women strip and offer topless, fully nude or private dances are controlled by the same council licensing rules as nightclubs, pubs and bars.
Now campaigners, including Hampshire MEP Caroline Lucas, claim that the clubs turn streets into no-go areas and want the Government to reclassify them to decide where they open, whether they can have private booths, and regulate how far from a dancer a customer has to sit.
Lap-dancing clubs in Southampton say that the new ruling would be unnecessary as they already adhere to strict rules to protect staff and the public.
Mrs Lucas backs the campaign by the Fawcett Society women's rights group, which is petitioning Downing Street to make the changes.
"It's absurd that an establishment which makes its income from the sexual objectification of women, in an adult entertainment industry which commercialises female sexuality - usually for male profit - can be established in any town or city in the same way as a coffee shop, with no additional provisions for worker safety."
Glenn Nicie, director of For Your Eyes Only (FYEO) in High Street, said: "Any relicensing would send the image of lap-dancing venues back into the gutter where they were 20 years ago.
"Today they are prestigious venues and we just won a Best Bar None award for Southampton, which says a lot about the club.
"The only problem with the law as it stands is that it's easy for someone to actually set one up. This may need looking at but to relabel them as sex encounter venues would be bad and unnecessary.
"Yes, they are places where women do sexy and sensual dances but they are not sexual venues and there is definitely a difference."
Vicki Andrews, owner of Poletrix in Above Bar Street, added: "This is a tired argument that comes up whenever someone jumps on the bandwagon.
"The city council has a good control and venues like ours are not selling sex.
We sell a three-minute dance by a girl and there is strictly no contact.
"Attitudes have got more relaxed but you get more sexual content in a men's magazine."
