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Pop star wants a sober twist for ‘noisy’ pub
Singer wants application for late smoking area licence rejected
POP star Tanita Tikaram has called for the rejection of an application from her local pub to let smokers puff away in the pub garden until late.
Ms Tikaram, who found fame with the hits Twist In My Sobriety and Good Tradition from her debut 1988 album, said allowing smokers to sit in The Queens garden for up to an hour later would “extend an already undesirable situation”.
Revellers in the garden were already too rowdy, said Ms Tikaram, 38, who lives nearby.
The pub, on the corner of Regent’s Park Road and St George’s Terrace in Primrose Hill, currently shuts its garden gate at 11pm in the week.
The licence-holder, Geronimo Inns Ltd, aims to move smokers from the pavements to the garden with the change. It has not asked to extend the drinking hours.
Ms Tikaram, whose brother Ramon Tikaram starred in the seminal 1990s series This Life, wants the Town Hall to turn down the application when licensing chiefs consider it on Tuesday.
In an emailed objection, she said: “Presently the people already spill over into St George’s Terrace leaving empty glasses, food and cigarette butts, using the garden as a urinal and as they drink more alcohol becoming louder and more raucous.”
She added: “I don’t see the sense in extending an already undesirable situation.”
The smoking ban has caused friction between pubs and residents because smokers are forced outside.
The July ban on smoking in workplaces has been a logistical nightmare for licensees as well as neighbours who are kept awake by smokers’ chattering.
But despite complaining about smoking in the street, many of the 10 objectors are against the changes.
Dr Huw Thomas said: “We already suffer from large groups of young people congregating outside at weekends and in the evenings.”
One neighbour, former Tory councillor Johnny Bucknell, said he thought objectors had mis-interpreted the application.
“Those who are lobbying have not understood the detail of the application,” he warned, throwing his support behind moving smokers from the pavement to the garden after 11pm. |
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