reported<\/a> <\/em>that Duke Street\u2019s Concept Club had initially been handed a temporary suspension by Westminster City Council following the brawl, which resulted in injuries including one man being stabbed in his abdomen.<\/p>\nFollowing the incident, the police raised \u201cgrave concerns\u201d about the venue\u2019s operations, noting \u201cmultiple breaches of the licence conditions and a clear lack of control\u201d.<\/p>\n
At a meeting on July 18, Westminster\u2019s licensing sub-committee agreed with the force that a suspension should be implemented on Concept Club until a full hearing could be held.<\/p>\n
During Monday\u2019s session, councillors were told by the Met\u2019s legal representative Amin Solimani the force was seeking revocation of the premises licence for three reasons; that the licensee, Electshow Ltd, had engaged in “wilful breaches\u201d of conditions, with the fight a result of such transgressions; that its use as a nightclub is \u201cfundamentally incompatible\u201d with its licence for a private members club; and that the licensee has failed to engage with the force.<\/p>\n
Mr Solimani said officers have been unable to access details including guest lists and till receipts when requested, and described the club\u2019s actions as \u201cobstructive\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s evasive, it\u2019s not clear why they\u2019re refusing to share evidence with the responsible authority, responsible for keeping people safe, responsible for working with the operator to keep Westminster locals safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Solimani added there were concerns regarding the Concept Club\u2019s use as a \u201cpublic nightclub\u201d, rather than a private members club.<\/p>\n
He said the police were told the venue scanned customers\u2019 IDs when they came in and that this constituted forming membership, a claim he described as \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that was all it took to be a private members club\u2026pretty much every club in the West End would be a private members club.\u201d<\/p>\n
The police\u2019s request for the committee to consider revocation was backed by the licensing authority and the council\u2019s environmental health service, as well as the site\u2019s landlord, Dukeson Properties Ltd.<\/p>\n
James Rankin, the freeholder\u2019s legal counsel, said Dukeson is \u201cconcerned\u201d that the tenant is a \u201cproper tenant\u201d, and on which count they appear to be falling short.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn any view what happened on the night\u2026was a serious incident, and on any view what has taken place is an obstruction by those that were operating the premises of the police when seeking to lawfully conduct an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Rankin added the venue should have applied to vary the licence if it had encountered issues, though that it had failed to do so.<\/p>\n
Instead, he said, it is attempting to \u201cshoehorn\u201d itself into the conditions as they stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the equivalent of an ugly sister attempting to squeeze herself into Cinderella\u2019s slipper,\u201d he said. \u201cIt simply does not fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s counsel Sarah Clover told the committee there had been a lot of \u201cmisinformation and inaccuracy\u201d in submissions from the police and other authorities, including regarding the ability for the venue to operate as a nightclub.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging the incident identified as the trigger for the review was \u201cserious\u201d, she said it was however isolated, and did not arise out of the manner in which it was being run.<\/p>\n
Ms Clover added there was nothing to suggest the police were impeded in their investigation, and described the existing licence as a \u201cFrankenstein\u2019s Monster of add-ons\u201d, which was confusing and ambiguous in its application.<\/p>\n
Key to her argument was that the police were inaccurate in their claim that the breaching of several conditions, which she also largely contested, had a direct link to the incident on July 15.<\/p>\n
She put it most succinctly in her summing up: \u201c[There] is not a clear correlation between the breaches of conditions\u2026and an inability to run the premises in a trustworthy and effective manner as far as licensing is concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillors however disagreed, concluding it was appropriate to revoke the venue\u2019s licence, and for the previously-agreed interim step of suspension to continue. A full decision is due to be published on the council\u2019s website \u201cin due course\u201d.<\/p>\n
Source: The Standard<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Mayfair private member’s club has had its licence revoked following a review triggered by a large fight at the venue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}