Labour has pledged to protect LGBT venues in Brighton and Hove if it wins a majority in the local elections in May.
The former deputy leader of the council, Ivor Caplin, shared the pledge at a gathering in Hove on Friday (17 February).
Mr Caplin, the Labour MP for Hove from 1997 to 2005, said: “A Labour majority council intends to change the planning regulations to provide that all LGBT venues will remain LGBT venues.”
The proposed policy change echoes similar moves to try to protect pubs and other assets of community value.
Mr Caplin said: “It’s about providing safe spaces and the traditional support across the city.
“It’s the first time we’ve done this in the 25-plus years since Brighton and Hove became a unitary authority.”
The local elections are due to take place Thursday 4 May.
All 54 seats on Brighton and Hove City Council are up for grabs although boundary changes mean that the newly elected councillors will represent 23 wards rather than 21.
Wow. Are they going to ensure that all heterosexual venues remain for heterosexuals too? If not why not or is it because this would be blatant disgusting discrimination? Do Labour care about anyone other than gay trans vote? Certainly not women that look like women and obviously not heterosexuals either.
Jessica
I think you’ve missed the point here.
The article refers to venues staying a LGBT venue, no discrimination there.
Those who use these venues have every right to feel safe and have the support that they need. We provide many things for disabled nowadays that we take for granted in our every day lives, so making provisions for our groups shouldn’t even be questioned in my opinion.
In complete contrast to you, If they took away these venues, that then would be discrimination.
I think someone needs to explain to people like Jessica how discrimination works.
The idea of a gay bar is that it’s a safe space for LGBTQI+ people, and as such they are precious community spaces.
The thing about being gay is that we are mostly invisible and going to a gay bar means we can see the other invisible people – or we can talk to straight friends and allies in a relaxed space without the need to continually ‘come out’ or to explain anything.
On a simple level, a gay couple can sit holding hands whist having a drink or when eating pub food without other people in the place noticing, and any threat of violence is also mostly removed.
Heterosexuals have this in every place they go to, and with much more choice in where they can go. Any straight business also caters for a much bigger commercial audience and rarely needs defending.
This Labour pledge here is not one that will cost us tax payers any money. It simply means that if a landlord applies to turn a gay bar into a block of flats then the planning department will not look favourably at losing a bar or cafe where it’s an established community asset.
And this was exactly what happened in London at the Vauxhall Tavern (where Paul O’Grady first became famous as Lily Savage), and that long-established gay pub was saved from the property developers.
Note that, in Brighton, the Richmond pub was well known for a few years as a pub and band venue, and the council are currently fighting that venue from being turned into flats, and they have said they would rather that the ground floor pub section remains.
But we must also fight for these lost live music venues – and that’s a similar idea here, except it’s the LGBTQI+ venues we are defending.
Billy Short
Bang on 100%.
I might not have human rights as a trans person under a Labour government but at least I can drink my problems away in the local pubs, cheers!