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Last dance for snooker nightclub
Centre Point venue boss ordered to put tables back after creating glitzy nightspot
IT was supposed to be a place to go for a quiet game of snooker late at night.
Instead, the Centre Point Snooker Club – with a legal capacity of 40 – was advertised to accommodate up to 400 clubbers, putting on R’n’B and hip-hop nights called Crazysexycool and Gangsta-Licious.
Following police raids and undercover operations by Camden’s licensing officers, the owner, Paul Krieger, had his licence reviewed at the town hall on Wednesday.
Narrowly avoiding a three-month suspension of trading, he was instead ordered to reinstate all the snooker tables he had removed to make way for a dance floor at the club, which is in the basement of the Centre Point tower in Tottenham Court Road.
He blamed his failure to apply for a ‘change of use’ to turn the snooker hall into a clubbers’ paradise on ignornace.
“I didn’t know I was breaking the law,” he told councillors.
Everything had run smoothly at the snooker club – renamed Soul Central for its dance makeover – since 1983, when Mr Krieger’s father bought it. It wasn’t until October last year, when Mr Krieger says he was talked into relaunching it as a club by staff and family, that things went awry.
He said: “The people around me became very enthusiastic, I got carried away and more or less gave him (John Fernando, the night manager) a free hand. He had this sideline as a football manager and every time he signed a footballer he wanted to bring them into the club, create a VIP area and sell champagne. From this he had the idea of the dance floor.
“I saw it as a way of improving the business. I didn’t know I was breaking the law.”
Up to 10 snooker and pool tables were hauled out and replaced by a DJ booth and stage to complete the transformation.
On one undercover mission, Camden’s licensing officer Tony Hawkes overheard a young woman approach police officers looking for “a really busy club she had been at a couple of weeks earlier”.
Locked fire escape doors and faulty CCTV also drew criticism from police during surprise raids. On several follow-up visits, the dangers pointed out by officers had not been rectified. On one occasion the key to the fire doors could not be found and the police shut the club.
Paula Matthews, of Holborn police station, said: “Given the seriousness and number of offences, police feel suspension is appropriate.”
Councillor Phil Thompson, chairman at the licensing meeting, told Mr Krieger: “I think this was an appalling state of affairs.
“It is a very serious aberration under your control.
“I wouldn’t want to prejudice further hearings, but if anything like this happened again this licence would most likely be revoked.”
Mr Krieger told the panel: “I don’t want to put people’s lives at risk. It was being badly run. It was a nightclub. The premises were not ideal for a nightclub situation and the cost of converting it and the legality (of converting it) was quite unattainable for me.
“I was aware of the music and dance licence, but I didn’t place a lot of importance on that.”
Mr Krieger’s licence was severely curtailed by councillors, who told him he must close at 1am, five hours earlier than previously, and stop serving alcohol at midnight rather than 3am.
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