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Music bar faces a licence review after street ‘brawl’
Police tell council how they found venue flouting opening hours
A POPULAR music bar in one of London’s most famous tourist streets is to have its licence reviewed after police broke up a 3am party on New Year’s Day.
Bosses at The Tin Pan Alley Bar (TPA) in Denmark Street, off Charing Cross Road, will face Camden Council’s licensing chiefs on Monday night after police called for the review.
Officers have presented the Town Hall with a dossier of statements amounting to a call for the bar’s licence to be revoked.
It includes accounts of a brawl outside the venue while on a routine patrol through Soho.
PC Gerry McGann said: “Approximately 10 males were fighting and one male was discharging a powder-filled fire extinguisher in the street, which created a huge cloud of white powder.
“As officers approached the venue we came under attack from a hail of bottles and glasses thrown by a group of males who immediately ran back into a side entrance, adjacent to the TPA bar.”
On entering the basement bar, police said they discovered between 40-50 customers still drinking, well past closing time.
There was a strong smell of cannabis and cigarettes and “it was clear” to PC McGann that “a large-scale brawl had taken place inside the venue and would appear to have spilled out”.
It took 20 police officers nearly an hour to remove everyone from the premises.
On previous visits police said they had found heavy traces of cocaine in the toilets and a strong smell of cannabis in an office.
During a discussion with the bar’s licensee in March last year, officers said they suggested ways drug use could be reduced and urged him to install CCTV cameras.
On another police visit in January – after the alleged brawl – police called for a licence review, concerned that there was no sign of any of their suggested measures in operation.
The bar’s management did not respond to messages left by the West End Extra yesterday (Thursday). |
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