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Islington Tribune - by ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 25 January 2008

Licensing row over ‘noisy’ millionaires

A BUDGET hotel has declared war on a sophisticated millionaires’ haunt because the noise coming from the club is keeping guests up at night.
Trendy Clerkenwell club Sosho, voted the fifth-best space in 21st- century London, will have its licence reviewed at Islington Town Hall on Monday after the newly opened Travelodge hotel opposite complained the noise was too much.
The businesses are at loggerheads, having both accused each other’s customers of bad behaviour.
The 329-bedroom Travelodge, which opened three months ago, has asked Islington’s licensing panel to reconsider the licence of Sosho, which has been trading on Tabernacle Street, off City Road, for the past seven years.
The club has a 24-hour licence but does not open all night every night.
Travelodge said it wanted the club’s licence reviewed because: “There have been problems operating the hotel as a result of disturbance to guests from patrons of Sosho. The hotel is now unable to let rooms facing Tabernacle Street.”
Islington police licensing officer PC Mark Usher submitted evidence of fights outside and inside the club between February and August last year.
But the club says it is facing its own problems from Travelodge.
Sosho’s solicitor, Gareth Hughes, of Jeffrey Green Russell solicitors, said the club was planning to counter Travelodge’s accusations with a request for the council to review Travelodge’s own licence “for activities which affect my client’s premises in a most direct way”.
Sosho instructed independent licensing consultant Michael Verling to stay at the hotel.
His report tells of a Travelodge hotel guest throwing a glass bottle and a kettle from a window.
He said the hotel did evict the guest but added: “It is my opinion that the presence, operation and management of Sosho Bar actually prevents the occurrence of nuisance and criminal behaviour that can be found along many side streets in the area.”

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