POLICE are investigating complaint that an organiser of a protest against a planned opening of a strip club in a Fife town was subjected to offensive sexist abuse in the street.
Former local councillor Marie Penman, one of the protest organisers, said two men in a van wound down their windows and shouted at her: "Get your t**s out, you virgin!" as she began to leave Kirkcaldy town square.
She says they then circled the sqaure for another few minutes and continued to shout abuse at her.
It came after around 50, including two local councillors, Judy Hamilton and Mary Lockhart, gathered outside the site of the Sin lap dancing club, the first strip joint in Fife, to protest over its opening next month.
The protest organised by a new group, Women Together in Fife (WTF), were also faced by a rival demonstration involving a handful of people in favour of the club.
Ms Penman said the abuse happened when she was getting ready to leave the town square.
"It kind of sums up why I object to places like Sin," she said. "It sends out the message that it's okay to treat women any way you want and to view them as purely sexual objects. I took a note of the van's number-plate and reported it to Police Scotland."
READ MORE: It's a Sin: Owner "dumbfounded" over planned street protest over new Scots strip club
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Police in Fife have received a report of threatening behaviour in Kirkcaldy. The incident was reported to have happened in the Wemyssfield area on Monday, October 22 and inquiries are ongoing."
Ms Penman said: "The protest is about the fact that clubs like this still exist in modern Scotland - they just seem like they're from a bygone era, when women were seen purely as sexual objects. We're all about equality and fairness in society and I don't believe strip clubs offer this.
"We're not trying to tell these women that they can't do what they want - we're saying these clubs shouldn't exist in the first place."
Two rival petitions were launched both for and against the strip club that have both been backed by nearly 300 people.
Club owner Mario Caira has said he was "dumbfounded" by the planned protest saying: "We are doing nothing illegal."
The local council says that the new lap dancing club which will be housed above the existing Kitty's nightclub and does not need a licence, an existing licence covers it.
Common Weal Fife, which launched a petition against the club said there was "no place for neutrality on this issue".
Mr Caira said of the protest: " Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The attitude in real terms to anyone that chooses to take up whatever kind of employment is wrong. It has to be up to the individual what they choose to do. There is nobody forcing anybody to do anything.
"It is rather disappointing in this day and age that people think they can dictate to others what they should and shouldn't do. We live in a democracy, a free country, where people have free choices to decide what they want to do, whether it be male or female, whether they be dancers, football fans, whatever."
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