Westminster ready to "Capone" Soho clip joints

In a week's time, it's going to be illegal to solicit for custom and Westminster will be kicking off a multi-agency team to, in its own words, "Capone" the clip joints out of town.

How do these clip joints work? It's usually a foreigner who suffers from the delusion that anything very exciting goes on Soho. He - for some odd reason it's nearly always a he - gets chatted up by some girl and invited to enter premises where he probably suspects there's some "entertainment".

Without even getting a pint of beer, the visitor suddenly discovers that he's being asked for £250-£500 for chatting up the chick.

If he doesn't stump up, he might find himself subjected to all sorts of threats. So Westminster Council will use weapons in its armoury such as compulsory purchase orders to try shut down the places.

For example, Westminster has already served compulsory purchase orders on two brothels in Soho, it appears.

Which, we think, are different from "clip joints". What's this got to do with technology? Regrettably, it's often foreigners that get snarled up in the Clip Joint SNAFUs, and a lot of technology businessmen often find their way to Soho. In fact, the district is safe as houses compared to some London suburbs, as long as you don't get inveigled by inveiglers. Anyway, the "Caponement" of Soho proceeds apace. µ

L'INQ
Soho