Sun City Live Theatre was the only English-language live theatre in Singapore , located in the Orchard Towers .
40-728: Sun City Live Theatre was a theatre on the fourth floor of the Orchard Towers . The only English-language live theatre in Singapore, it replaced the Petrel Live Theatre on 25 May 1983. The theatre was owned by Jasper Productions. The main act of the theatre was originally supposed to include ten male actors from a mime troupe, choreographed by Charles van Geun, impersonating several stars such as Liza Minnelli , Diana Ross , Dolly Parton and Marilyn Monroe , besides performing traditional dances from Thai, Japanese and Korean cultures. However,
80-473: A Singapore building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Orchard Towers Orchard Towers is an 18-story office building in Singapore located on the corner of Claymore Road and Orchard Road . Construction was completed in 1975. The first five floors are a combination of bars and retail outlets with the remainder leased as offices. During the day the building functions as
120-486: A call for assistance at Orchard Towers at 6.25am on the day of the incident. The victim was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7.25am. Shopkeepers at Orchard Towers said they heard a group of people shouting and fighting in the early morning. The fight allegedly originated in the Naughty Girl Club, which led the group to commit the murder. In 2024, Tan Sen Yang was convicted of murder and
160-751: A focus on the development of adult shops within Australia took place. Sex shops in Spain did not appear until after the end of the Francoist dictatorship in 1975. The first sex shop opened in Spain was Kitsch in Madrid in 1978. Many subsequently opened across the country. Almost all licensed adult stores in the UK are forbidden from having their wares in open shop windows under the Indecent Displays Act 1981 , which means often
200-674: A licence. Mainland China's first sex shop opened in Beijing in 1993 and by 2013, there were over 2,000 sex shops in the city. Most of their products were made in China. The first sex shop in North America was called The Garden. It was opened in October 1971 by Ivor Sargent on Crescent Street in downtown Montreal , Quebec. The Garden combined the concepts used by Beate Uhse in Germany and Ann Summers in
240-524: A licence. Sh! took the council to court and consequently won the right to remain open, as there were no sufficient reasons for the closure. In 2003, the Ann Summers chain of lingerie and sex toy shops won the right to advertise for shop assistants in Job Centres, which was originally banned under restrictions on what advertising could be carried out by the sex industry. In 2007, a Northern Ireland sex shop
280-469: A retail and office style building, but the building is best known as a landmark entertainment complex famously described as the "Four Floors of Whores" or simply the "Four Floors". In addition, one of the towers houses 58 freehold condominium residential units. Orchard Tower houses the Embassy of Romania on the 8th floor, Honorary Consulate of Mauritius on the 9th floor and the Embassy of Cambodia on
320-528: A roof garden, a 450-seat theater, and 150 retail units in the building along Orchard Road, as well as 58 residential units and a two-floor supermarket in the other building. A cinema was located on level 4 in the early 1980s. It was subsequently converted into a nightclub and performance space called Top Ten, later renamed Top 5. By the mid-2000s the building's nighttime prostitution had come to dominate its daytime retailing of electronic goods and jewellery. The sex workers and their clients were mostly foreign. By
360-711: A six-storey podium, while the other building comprises a 17-storey residential tower block and a seven-storey podium. The lower floors of both podiums, and the basement, are set aside for commercial use, while the upper floors of the seven-storey podium houses the development's carpark. Orchard Towers differs from conventional Singapore red light districts such as that in Geylang . Instead of providing brothels, Orchard Towers serves as an establishment where clients are able to meet and pick up prostitutes whom they take to nearby hotels. These prostitutes are mostly freelancers who are in Singapore on tourist visas and thus working illegally, and
400-889: A small area. The borough has 15 licensed sex shops and several remaining unlicensed ones. Islington and Camden each have multiple sex shops; the former also has three pornographic cinemas. Sex shops in Scotland are regulated under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 . In the United States, a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s (based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution ) generally legalized sex shops, while still allowing states and local jurisdictions to limit them through zoning . Zoning regulations often caused shops to be located either on
440-637: A total of 24 years in jail for two amended charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (10 years for each amended charge) and one charge of causing evidence to disappear (4 years for the third charge). McCrea's appeal for a lighter jail term was thrown out by the Court of Appeal of Singapore. On 2 July 2019, a group of seven people took part in the murder of Satheesh Noel Gobidass . The assailants were Tan Sen Yang, 27, Ang Da Yuan, 26, Joel Tan Yun Sheng, 26, Natalie Siow Yu Zhen, 22, Loo Boon Chong, 25, Tan Hong Sheng, 22, and Chan Jia Xing, 26. The police received
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#1732858398081480-756: Is 16 in Canada, an age of 18+ is required to purchase or view pornography. Most sex shops sell adult videos, which means that most sex toys are on sale only to adults. Beate Uhse-Rotermund started selling contraception information by mail order in 1946, and she opened her first shop in 1962. Legal restrictions in West Germany dating back to 1872 were tightened in 1968. Pornography was legalized in West Germany in 1975, although this never happened in East Germany . The first Hungarian sex shop opened on 15 November 1989, before
520-473: Is necessary to introduce control over the distribution of intimate goods: "The use and application of such products will occur exclusively as prescribed by a doctor." In 2018, Milonov proposed closing all sex shops in Russia. In his opinion, all sex shops in Russia should disappear along with advertising since only "sick people" shop there. This is in contrast to his position in 2013 when he only called for reducing
560-647: The end of communism in Hungary , at 14 Károly Boulevard in Budapest, under the name Intim Center, which still exists today. At that time, the three T-categories were so suddenly moved from the forbidden to the tolerated that even the press of the time reported the administrative uncertainties surrounding the sex shop in this way. The first sex shop in Italy was opened in 1972 in Milan by Angela Masia and her husband Ercole Sabbatini. This
600-405: The 10th floor. Located at the junction of Orchard and Claymore Roads, and occupying two freehold plots with a total area of 66,000 square feet (6,100 m ), Orchard Towers comprises two separate buildings straddling Claymore Drive. Linked together by an overhead walkway, each building consists of a tower block and a podium. The building facing Orchard Road comprises a 18-storey office tower and
640-883: The 1960s, first in the urban areas of Sydney , notably Kings Cross . The development of sex shops in the country was assisted by the legalisation of the import of pornographic magazines in 1971, the appearance of mass-produced battery-powered vibrators in the 1970s and the arrival of X-rated videos in the 1980s. The popularity of Internet pornography in the 2000s resulted in a drop in sex shop sales, some store closures and diversification into non-sex-related adult goods. Sex shops in Australia are regulated by state laws and are subject to local planning controls. While laws differ between states, licensees must abide by strict conditions that commonly require premises to be at least 200 metres from schools and churches. Windows are often required to be blacked out and admission restricted to over 18s, with offences prosecuted by police under section 578E of
680-485: The Crimes Act. In the state of New South Wales (NSW), sex shops cannot trade at street level and are required to trade either above or below ground. Under NSW law, non-contraceptive sex products can be sold only in shops that have been granted a restricted premise licence by local councils. Nevertheless, by 2013, a number of NSW lingerie stores had begun selling adult toys and books in shopping malls without being granted
720-552: The Netherlands in 2010. It had 70,000 hits to the website in the first four days of operation. In Russia, sex shops are often criticized by public and political figures, often of a conservative nature. In May 2017, State Duma Deputy from United Russia Vitaly Milonov addressed the head of the Ministry of Health , Veronika Skvortsova , with the initiative to equate intimate products with medicinal products. According to Milonov, it
760-518: The Orchard Towers car park. Peter Chong discovered the car on 7 January 2002 and informed the car park's security guards, who informed the Singapore police. The case is known as the Orchard Towers double murders. Both fled to Australia. Ong was extradited back to Singapore in 2002, and sentenced on 7 February 2003 to 12 years in jail for helping McCrea to dispose of the bodies. McCrea was extradited on 27 September 2005, and sentenced on 29 June 2006 to
800-406: The UK. The store's opening attracted long lines of shoppers. The Palm Beach Post commented: "Like the chicken or the egg controversy, no one is really sure which came first-the sex boutique or the so-called sexual revolution ". There are no specific laws against using or buying sex toys at any particular age, but there are laws restricting the purchase of pornography. Although the age of consent
840-593: The UK. The Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 required sex shops to apply for a sex establishment licence from their local authority. As a result hundreds of sex shops were closed. There followed purges of corrupt police officers, along with new and tighter licensing controls by the City of Westminster, led to a crackdown on illegal premises in Soho. In the early 1990s, London's Hackney council sought to shut down Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium , because they did not have
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#1732858398081880-449: The act was cancelled, as authorities deemed the act unsuitable for Singaporean audiences. As the main act was cancelled, the theatre failed to attract tour groups, with fewer than ten people showing up on some nights. After the mime troupe's two month contract had expired, the theatre closed down on 31 July 1983. 1°18′26″N 103°49′29″E / 1.3072°N 103.8248°E / 1.3072; 103.8248 This article about
920-492: The age depending on local law. Some jurisdictions prohibit sex shops and the merchandise they sell. In some jurisdictions that permit it, they may also show pornographic movies in private video booths , or have private striptease or peep shows . An adult movie theater may be attached. There are also many online sex shops selling a variety of adult content such as sex toys, pornographic magazines , pornographic films and fetish wear etc. These types of shop are often favoured by
960-425: The complex is thus regularly raided by police. The prostitutes are primarily from Thailand , Philippines , Indonesia with a few from Vietnam and Eastern Europe . In the early 2010s well-known bars in the shopping mall included Ipanema, Top 5 (formerly known as Top Ten), Harry's Bar and Naughty Girl. The mall includes basic amenities such as ATMs , as well as a supermarket and a convenience store. Plans for
1000-482: The consumer as they have less overheads and can be perused within the comfort of the home. Their discreetness is also appealing to some. Sex shops may also be called adult shop , adult store , erotic shop , porn shop , adult entertainment store , or adult book store . In some jurisdictions, polite euphemisms are used such as "marital aid store" or "adult novelties store". Sex shops have operated in Australia since
1040-483: The development of Orchard Towers were first drawn up by Golden Bay Realty in the early 1970s. Conceived as a "multi-purpose development", the development included offices, retail space, and residential units, and was expected to cost S$ 35 million. Sime Darby acquired the development in May 1973, as part of their takeover of Golden Bay Realty, and the building was completed by 1975. Upon completion, Orchard Towers contained
1080-459: The development. In an attempt to get the police to reconsider, the nightlife operators shortened their operating hours, and the mall's business association hired additional security guards, but as of January 2023, the police remained firm on their decision not to renew the licenses. Nevertheless, in April 2023, the police subsequently extended the nightspots' licenses by two months, which was to allow for
1120-473: The district of Soho within the City of Westminster a handful of sex shops were opened by Carl Slack in the early 1960s, and by the mid-1970s the number had grown to 59. Some had nominally "secret" backrooms selling hardcore photographs and novels, including Olympia Press editions. In 1978, the businessman David Sullivan opened the "Private Shop", the first of his chain of sex shops which went on to expand across
1160-511: The lingerie manufacturing company Diana Slip . His shops sold erotic books and photographs as well as lingerie. Beate Uhse AG opened a sex shop in 1962 in Flensburg , West Germany , and it has been described as the world's first "official" sex shop. Sex shops can now be found in many countries and online. Sex shops are part of the sex industry . In most jurisdictions, sex shops are regulated by law, with access not legally permitted to minors ,
1200-466: The mall. On 2 January 2002, Michael McCrea (also known as Mike Townsend), a British expatriate in his 40s, murdered his driver friend Kho Nai Guan (46) and Kho's fiancée Lan Ya Ming (30) in his apartment in Pinewood Garden. Audrey Ong helped McCrea in the murder. After the murders, the bodies of the two deceased were left inside a silver Daewoo Chairman 400 which was abandoned on the 6th storey of
1240-499: The mid-2010s the building was ageing and run-down in comparison to the majority of up-market shopping malls on Orchard Road, with its retail units tenanted by sex shops , beauty parlours and girlie bars . In July 2022, nightlife operators at Orchard Towers were notified that their licenses were not being renewed, which the Singapore Police Force attributed to continued issues regarding public safety and vice activities at
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1280-506: The nightspots to move out more smoothly. By October 2023, all the nightspots in Orchard Towers had moved out or closed down. In December 2023, the mall's operator announced plans to refresh Orchard Towers. These plans included the replacement of the mall's facade, and bringing in more "family-friendly" tenants such as tuition centres and food and beverage outlets in place of the massage parlours and nightspots that had moved out. Nevertheless, CNA reported that there still were vice activities at
1320-464: The number of sex shops in St. Petersburg. Sex shops are extremely rare in Singapore. A few had been opened by 2005, but only about 1–2 currently exist. These shops mainly sell lingerie, condoms, BDSM tools, genuine enhancement pills, tenga items and various sex toys. Their goods can be seen through a store window. After Nelson Mandela backed the anti-discrimination law that legalised sex toys, "Adult World"
1360-434: The opening of the shop, where a protest march of over 500 people brought traffic to a standstill. During the next couple of days, the protesters held placards which proclaimed "Real men don't need pornography" and "Protect our people from banned pornography". When the shop was opened, it was found that 70% of the customer base were women who wished to learn more about adult lifestyle products. As Adult World grew more popular,
1400-434: The outskirts of town, or clumped into a single area, creating a type of red light district of adult stores and businesses. Into the 1980s, nearly all American sex shops were oriented to an almost entirely male clientele. Many included adult video arcades , and nearly all were designed so that their customers could not be seen from the street: they lacked windows, and the doors often involved an L-shaped turn so that people on
1440-632: The shop fronts are boarded up or covered in posters. A warning sign must be clearly shown at the entrance to the store, and no sex articles (for example, pornography or sex toys) should be visible from the street. However, lingerie, non-offensive covers of adult material, etc. may be shown depending on the licence conditions of the local authority. The Video Recordings Act 1984 introduced the R18-rated classification for videos that are only available in licensed sex shops. No customer can be under 18 years old. In London, few boroughs that have licensed sex shops. In
1480-500: Was awarded a life sentence and caning of 12 strokes by the High Court. Sex shop A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys , lingerie , pornography , and other related products. An early precursor of the modern sex shop was a chain of stores set up in Paris in the 1920s by Léon Vidal, the founder of
1520-525: Was denied a licence by the Belfast City Council . The shop appealed and won, but this was overturned by the House of Lords. The licensing or closing of unlicensed sex shops, along with cultural changes such as the substantial relaxation of general censorship and the ready availability of non-commercial sex, and the availability of sexual material online, have reduced the red-light district of Soho to just
1560-660: Was established in 1994 as South Africa's first sex shop. Adult World came to operate a total of 52 shops within South Africa and 15 shops in Australia. Many religious Christian communities believed that the use of these adult lifestyle centres would lead to higher crime rates and attempted to organise mass demonstrations at their opening to force the closure of Adult World. In July 1998, Adult World opened their largest adult lifestyle shop in Parow, Cape Town which they named "Adult World Warehouse". The adult movie star Christi Lake attended
1600-575: Was the first "official" sex shop. Since then more sex shops have opened, mostly in Rome. In 2018, the city of Pistoia in Tuscany banned the opening of new sex shops in the city's history centre. In Japan , sex shops contain hentai magazines, adult videos and DVDs. The first sex shops in the Netherlands were opened in the early 1970s, by entrepreneurs like Beate Uhse and Lasse Braun . The world's first Muslim-aimed online sex shop called El Asira opened in
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