A bar in Kilburn that is popular with celebrities faces having its opening hours slashed following claims of a violent late night brawl which left four revellers unconscious.
Police are seeking a licensing review of Love & Liquor in Kilburn High Road, where DJ Idris Elba has performed, which will be discussed by Camden Council tomorrow evening.
They are requesting it is forced to close ona Saturday at 1am instead of 3am.
Up for discussion is a review of the opening times and increased security and door policy as they believe “the ‘Prevention of Crime & Disorder’ licensing objective is not being upheld”.
In its report the police claim bouncers lost control of customers on November 29 last year at 3am after a row broke out inside, caused by two girls from different groups.
One of the women received a fractured arm and hand, cuts to her head and bruising to her face.
One anonymous witness, a catering company manager who was at the club to celebrate his employee’s birthday, said he was in the VIP area of the club when a “massive brawl” broke out and noticed a friend was missing.
In a statement he said: “As I was looking around trying to find my friend I noticed one of my employees being attacked. He was being hit and had his turban knocked off and was outnumbered. I naturally ran to him and tried to pull him out.
As he escaped, someone bottled my kneecap and I hit the ground. Then there was just constant kicks and punches as I was on the ground. I could not get out until someone dragged me out to the toilets and saw m employee and knew we were both safe.”
CCTV cameras picked up four unconscious men, one of whom is known to the police as a gang member who “refused to cooperate”.
PC Christopher Malone said in the report that all incidents of violence in the past 18 months had occurred around 2-3am at weekends.
He added: “The venue has been trying to market itself as a West-End style nightclub and attempting to attract a customer base from there. Our view is that a s a geographically isolated venue, it will always attract a certain undesirable element from the locale. Only a significant change in business model will allow this venue to uphold the licensing objectives. We seek a reduction in hours for licensable activities away from the current terminal hours when violence has occurred.”
Darko Martin, general manager of the Love & Liquor, said he did not wish to see a licence change which would result in the club closing at 1am not 3am.
He added: “We had a couple of incidents that weren’t very pleasant. It was a failure of security action and I spoke to them. It is very difficult to be everywhere and do everything but we changed security again a couple of weeks ago.
This is the Kilburn area and this type of crime is attracted here but we were nominated Best New Club 2015 at the London Bar and Club Awards and for us to get that we have to be voted by clients.
“We are looking to put new concepts in place, we want to start serving food. I think it will be a nice venue for the borough, there’s a future for it, the business shouldn’t be damaged.
“I work very closely with Camden licensing team, with the council. We will try to come to a common interest with the people in the community, the council and the police.”
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