Dear reader, I am not here to discuss the merits of a lifestyle choice that is described lovingly as swinging, I’ll let you choose (if you’re a consenting adult of course), although as per my manifesto posted here, I would suspect that consenting adults could pretty well much get up to anything they wanted, with some boundaries of course. It’s all a matter of consent and planning permission.
Not the boundaries set by the happy clappies and the other well dressed and exceedingly polite missionaries that routinely bash at my door on a Saturday morning though.
Coast swingers party over (link now gone)
Matthew Killoran | October 6th, 2010 – Gold Coast Bulletin
The party is over for the swingers club in the Burleigh Heads industrial area, but it could be heading to a residential area near you.
The Utopia Swingers Club had its application to continue to operate out of a light industrial site at Burleigh rejected at the Gold Coast City Council’s city planning committee yesterday after noise complaints from neighbouring residential streets.
But city planning boss Cr Ted Shepherd said swingers clubs could fall under the proposed party house solution of short term rentals in residential areas, with strict conditions put in place on outside noise, operating hours and parking.
He said proposed party house restrictions, still waiting approval from the State Government to be put in place, could apply to swingers clubs in the suburbs.
“It’s exactly the same as a party house but without the unruly behaviour. You could turn it into a party house,” he said.
“It could fall under those considerations.
“The regulations that immediately spring to mind … we would limit their hours of operations and noise coming from outside the building and car parking.
“If it was private people, not a club, they could operate out of any house anyway.”
But Burleigh Heads councillor Greg Betts disagreed that the club fit into the party house category.
“The whole issue with the party house drive for change was that we had people moving in on a short-term basis. This wouldn’t be short term, it would be full-time,” he said.
Utopia Swingers Club has been operating out of the light industrial site for more than a year.
The club owners applied to hold ‘events’ involving up to 30 people each Friday and Saturday night from 8pm to 3am, monthly theme parties for up to 80 and four major annual events for up to 200, including Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties.
The club includes a ‘dungeon’ and a ‘wild room’ as well as a dance stage and outdoor spa.
Now this is all very sensational ain’t it, the local news goes nut-so over the salacious topic of swingers and they race each other, or race each other off, to outdo each other with saucy details. I can’t really say too much about the club or its failure to get approval, let’s hope it was based on sensible, standard operating procedure, non judgemental ( now that’s silly, the process is judgemental ) or even taste, morals, the lack of, or success rate, in the decision makers sex lives. It surely ( don’t call me Shirley ) is based upon “sound” planning principles and not the nonsense normally proffered to applicants for sex shops, brothels or solo sex workers .. all legal and approved activities in Queensland.
This brief post today has come about (I’m at it already) as the Gold Coast Bulletin kindly, or in ignorance posted my reply to the story online, I like leaving my mark in the online bits, it leaves a smile on my dial and a pip in my step, unlike the swingers I can get my rocks off without actually sharing them with others.
Good luck in finding a premise and beware of the double entendre that will accompany the application and reporting of same. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you as you pursue your alternative lifestyle, it’s just that the Council may pursue you even further away.