Management “was Careless” and Detained Employee “Wants to Go Back If He Can” to Start Over Kabukicho “SOD LAND” Now

SOD LAND” was operated by Soft on Demand (SOD), a major manufacturer, as an “adult theme park. It was crowded every day with visitors who could meet popular actresses.

However, on March 14, 2011, SOD LAND was busted by the Metropolitan Police Department, and the manager and store manager were arrested for violating the Entertainment Establishments Control Law (*). Has the problematic business policy that led to the arrests been improved? …… For this interview, we spoke with Tetsuya Takaoka, 41, current president of SAKAYA PROJECT Co.

Mr. Takaoka said, “We were on the edge under the law, but it was impossible for us to operate as a restaurant business.”

The SOD LAND bust was in the news and became a hot topic. It happened while the restaurant was open for business.

About 20 plainclothes police officers came to the store during business hours. When the manager and others were taken away by the police, the police station had already received media and other news coverage. I think now that the information of the exposé must have leaked out somewhere. …… It really came out of nowhere.

The arrest of the manager and other store managers was unprecedented, but in fact, there were two cautions before the bust.

The reason for the arrest was that SOD LAND was operating under a restaurant business license without obtaining a license under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law. In order to serve customers, such as employees talking with customers, they needed a permit under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, not a food and beverage business permit. If the police pointed this out to us, we should normally have obtained a permit immediately. But we took the liberty of asking for a second career for the actresses and for the women who work at the restaurant, “Where do you work? “We wanted to make sure that when people asked, ‘Where do you work?’ they would be able to answer, ‘In a restaurant,'” Takaoka said.

However, this lack of awareness and the parental love they said they had for each other led to their being exposed, and SOD LAND was also born out of a desire to provide a place for sexy actresses and women working in restaurants who had lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 crisis to work.

The first one was a standing bar in Akihabara called ‘Joshi Shainba (Girls’ Employee Bar)’ in 2006. I wanted to provide a place where sexy actresses could work outside of filming, and I also wanted to create a place where users could casually come and have fun. I started the store with that in mind. I thought that adult video viewers would come to the store, but when I lifted the lid, I found that regular office workers came to the store. When I ordered a highball, the female cast members gave me a high-five, and they seemed to think it was a fun place to hang out.

SOD LAND opened in Kabukicho in 2008 as an outgrowth of Joshi Koinin Tavern.

When it first opened, it was so popular that people had to wait in line to get in. However, due to harmful rumors such as the spread of Corona from Kabukicho, we were unable to open for business. …… We operated for about a year and a half on a limited basis while receiving government subsidies. At first, women served customers at U-shaped tables with a casino dealer in the middle. However, we received guidance from the police on this as well,” said Takaoka.

A food and beverage license does not allow the cast members to talk to customers. According to Mr. Takaoka, since they were not sitting next to each other and serving customers as in a cabaret club, he was aware that it was okay.

On the other hand, if the Entertainment Establishments Control Law is obtained, business hours would be limited to 25:00, and various restrictions would be placed on the store’s equipment and other facilities. We cannot rule out the possibility that the store ignored the revelation in order to avoid the disadvantages.

When we asked them about this, they replied

When we asked them about this, they replied, “We also followed the food and beverage license in terms of business hours and brightness of the restaurant. After we were instructed to do so, we removed the U-shaped tables and replaced them with counter tables that you would find in a standing bar. However, serving customers without complying with the Entertainment Establishments Control Law was itself illegal, so we were caught. The company discussed whether or not to take the Entertainment Establishments Control Law when the second instruction came in. However, we decided to stay in the restaurant business, and that was our policy. I think we were careless.

The company’s response was, “I think we were careless.

In order to obtain a permit under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, a major renovation was necessary. It is rumored to have cost more than 200 million yen to open SOD LAND, and further costs were incurred for renovations.

The biggest problem was the magic mirror room on the fourth floor. Under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, walls and screens more than one meter high cannot be placed on the floor. We had to tear down the floor that we had spent tens of millions of yen to build. …… (laughter). When I got an estimate, I was told it would cost about 5 million yen, which made me pale. In the end, my staff and I helped with the demolition work and were able to keep the cost down to 500,000 yen. There were many obstacles to overcome in order to obtain a permit under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law,” said Takaoka.

SOD LAND reopened in August 2011 after a five-month closure to obtain an adult entertainment business No. 1 permit. It operates in the form of a bar with different concepts from the first basement floor to the fourth floor. We scouted each floor to see if they had actually been renovated. The restaurant is open and brightly lit. It is regrettable that they did not have a business license under the Entertainment Establishments Control Law from the beginning.

The price per customer here is about 10,000 yen. The clientele is mostly businessmen, so it is not a place that costs tens of thousands of yen like a cabaret club. Recently, we have about 200 customers a month from overseas. The floor, where you can touch each other at close range, is popular because you can enjoy yourself without having to engage in conversation,” says Mr. Takaoka.

The staff member who was in charge of the store expressed his desire to work again while in detention, saying, “If there is a place I can go back to, I would like to go back. When asked about how he decided to return to the store after such a difficult time, he replied, “Since this is such a big company, I thought they would clear up the problem properly from now on. Besides, I felt bad that the place where everyone enjoyed working would be gone,” she said.

The female cast members who were working at the store when the investigation was launched have also returned.

I felt a sense of urgency that if we didn’t get the place back up and running soon, there would be no place for the women to work. We have about 200 cast members now. Half of them are actresses, and the rest are sex store workers. Recently, the number of general workers has been increasing. They are amateur women who usually work as dental assistants or telemarketers on the side. In one case, an influencer increased her followers from zero to 50,000 after she started working at SOD LAND,” says Takaoka.

The restaurant is filled with the laughter of the cast members and customers. For the sake of the cast members and staff who have come back after the incident, I hope that the laxity of perception that was pointed out the last time will be wiped out in the future. Kabukicho has a bad image, but SOD LAND, under the guidance of the police, is making a third start by providing a comfortable working environment for staff and women.