Rouge

History

A lap dancing club rather than a pub or a nightclub, and listed here because it holds a licence in the same complex as everything else on this stretch. Stage performances and private booths; customers stay seated, no contact, no photography. Thursday to Saturday plus bank holiday Sundays, to half past four, one of the latest licences in the city.

It is licensed separately from the bars around it. Lap dancing is not covered by a premises licence: it needs a sexual entertainment venue licence under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, renewed annually, and the council advertises each application in the press and on a notice outside the door. Rouge holds Carlisle's SEV01, the first number on the register. The licence issued on 22 May 2025 ran to 31 May 2026, and the current one, issued on 18 May 2026, runs from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2027.

For years it was the only one in the city on that register. It no longer is: in December 2025 the council granted the second, SEV02, to Arches in the basement at 4A Botchergate, a couple of hundred yards away. Carlisle's licensed adult entertainment is now two venues, both at the top of Botchergate.

It shares the plaza with Ballers and Deja Vu, and for years it also shared it with the Las Vegas Strip next door, which was a separate business rather than an earlier name for this one. The two traded alongside each other. Rouge holds Unit 8 on the licensing register; the Las Vegas had 8A, and by local account its bars wrapped around this unit.