Camden New Journal - News: Pop star stubs out hopes of a late-night fag outside pub

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Camden New Journal - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 11 October 2007

Tanita Tikaram

Pop star stubs out hopes of a late-night fag outside pub

A PRIMROSE Hill pub whose “raucous” customers have annoyed a 1980s pop star living nearby has lost a bid for a later outdoors licence.
The Queens in Regent’s Park Road – overlooking Primrose Hill – wanted to allow customers to smoke outside until closing time.
Currently, drinkers are not allowed to stand outside the pub after 10pm. Smokers, pushed outdoors by the ban introduced in July, must light up beside neighbouring homes or cross the road to Primrose Hill if they want to have a cigarette.
But at the Town Hall on Thursday, a licensing panel ruled pub owner Geronimo Inns had to keep customers under control before it could have a later outdoors licence.
A neighbour of the pub, pop star Tanita Tikaram, turned up to the meeting but left after just minutes and did not speak.
In an emailed objection, she complained that people were already too rowdy.
Ms Tikaram, who had a hit in the 1980s with Twist In My Sobriety, added: “People drinking in the pub 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.
“I don’t see the sense in extending an already undesirable situation.”
Lib Dem councillor Phil Thompson told Geronimo it was putting “the cart before the horse”. The pub should sort out current management problems before expecting a “more generous” review of its licence, he added.
Camden has powers to close a pub if the noise outside is too loud.
Geronimo, which has run the pub for 10 years, warned that it would be harder to control customers without the extended licence.
In a letter to the New Journal, commercial director Ed Turner said: “The customers would be moved further along, and The Queens would not be able to manage potential disturbances.”
He told the panel: “There’s been a lot of changes and problems for the industry on the back of the change in smoking laws.
“It’s been very difficult, it’s been a big learning curve for us and our customers.”
His deputy said he would call the police if there were customers or large crowds he could not manage.

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