Bourgeois Decadence. In Catford.

The Daily Mail (17 January 2013) reports this Lewisham story with its usual mix of salaciousness and outrage:

'A French bistro is set to lose its licence after a council launched an investigation into it holding 'sex parties' in the basement. Bosses of the Le Bourgeois eatery - situated on the ground floor of a 1960s tower block called Eros House in Catford, south London - have been told that its license faces being withdrawn after a raft of complaints from neighbours...

According to locals the bistro holds regular 'basement sex parties', with strippers and exotic dancers and 'private booths' for regulars. Locals also reported people openly having sex outside the eatery - whose name translates as 'the middle classes' - with one saying he found hands prints all over his car, suggesting someone had romped on his bonnet...

Others said the restaurant was a 'haven' for sex parties, with one saying that a 'pool party' held last summer - in which punters turned up in swimming costumes - turned into a 'sexual free for all'. He said: 'They all turned up in swimming costumes - maybe 20 people and by the end of the night they were outside having sex on cars and on the pavement - it's disgusting.'

Police said that parties - called 'late night adult parties' - are advertised as The Thick Lick - which is slang for a 'sensual massage' which ends up with a pair having sex.The ads for the parties state that the restaurant will lay on 'male and female performers, exotic dancers, private rooms'.

The matter is being discussed tonight, Thursday 18 January, at Lewisham Council's Licensing Committee. The full report on the bar/cafe in Brownmill Road SE6 is here - sex does figure, but it seems late night drinking and dominoes is more common at the bar. The main complaints from the neighbours are the usual ones of noise and dodgy blokes pissing in the stairs, rather than Caligula in Catford. A photo suggests that the pool party consisted of a couple of paddling pools behind the block.