A shisha lounge near the Thames Barrier will have its opening hours cut by an hour after a series of stabbings, armed robberies and large-scale fights in its vicinity.

Police had applied for a 1.30am curfew on the Hayatt Lounge, in Westmoor Street, Charlton. The venue said such a move would “kill the business” and said that police needed to do more to protect staff and customers., 

Instead, a Greenwich Council licensing sub-committee decided to bring forward Hayatt’s closing time by an hour each day. The venue will now close at 3am on Monday to Wednesday mornings and 4am on Thursday to Sunday, with last orders half an hour beforehand.

David Graham, representing the Metropolitan Police, said there had been 13 instances of serious crime and disorder in the vicinity of the venue since February last year.

These included two men being stabbed after trying to break up a fight, a Hayatt customer being robbed of his jewellery at gunpoint before being pistol-whipped, and another man being robbed by four masked men, one of whom had a machete, right outside the venue.

Graham also spoke of a brawl outside Hayatt in April that involved up to 50 people. In June, a man returned to the venue after being ejected by security staff which resulted in a fight involving up to 40 people. During this second fight, a member of the security team was stabbed.

The most recent incident, which prompted the licence review, took place in the early morning of July 27. A security staff member “was hit heavily over the head with a canister of nitrous oxide gas” which broke his jaw and left him with a bleed on the brain. Police have since confirmed that the victim is out of coma and is not in a life-threatening condition.

‘Sheer volume of crime’

Quoting a police officer, Graham said: “What has prompted this review is not a lack of co-operation or failures on the part of Hayatt Lounge, but rather the sheer volume of crime that can be attributed to the premises because of the availability of licensable activities.”

As well as cutting the opening hours, police also wanted to remove dance and live performances, to make sure all patrons were seated, and to ensure that music was at a background level only.

Graham said the venue could be run without causing problems, but instead it was “attracting violent and armed people into this immediate area and resulting in commission of serious offences”.

One of the committee, Ann-Marie Cousins, a Labour councillor for Abbey Wood, asked why police had not put more resources into curtailing crime near the Hayatt. In response, Graham asked whether it was right that the venue should be placing an extra burden on the police who would need to come up with a “bespoke plan” to deal with the venue, a notion he called “perverse”.

Cousins said: “You’ve got management that everyone is acknowledging is doing a fantastic job on their premises. It is one or two clients who are occasionally getting into trouble. It is not everyone.”

In his submission, Hayatt’s legal representative Gary Grant said: “The reasonable remedy for a migraine is not always a beheading, but that is the police’s submission to you.” He said that the premises would not survive with a 1.30am licence, and this was evidenced by Hayatt’s footfall decreasing by 74 per cent since an interim order limiting its hours was issued on July 31.

‘This is a well-managed venue’

Grant said: “Let’s look at the problems and work out if they are connected to the mismanagement of this premises. All parties accept that this is not the case here. This is a well-managed late-night venue.”

Mr Grant said it was not unreasonable to expect the Met, as “guardians of the prevention of crime and disorder” to step up their response to the repeated instances of crime, adding the venue was willing to increase the number of security staff and street marshals. It would employ a dedicated CCTV operator and even use a drone to survey the area, he said. 

Grant said the majority of the incidents occurred either when door staff complied with licensing conditions and “banned troublemakers from entering” or when “villains from outside travel in to prey on our customers”. 

In response to police not wanting to commit extra resources to monitor the venue, Grant said: “If we ran our licensing system according to police resources, just about every licensed venue would have to close its doors.”

Grant also wanted the committee to consider the future of the venue, its 50 staff and its importance to West African and Caribbean communities. 

He said: “We ask that the 104,000 people who attend this venue peacefully each year are not having their entertainment areas ruined because a tiny minority of criminals are focusing on our customers and our security guards.”

Two years ago the venue’s licence was suspended for a month after allegations of violence and complaints to Newham Council from residents across the Thames about noise.

The licensing hearing took place last week, with a written decision from the committee – Cousins, Plumstead & Glyndon councillor Jit Ranhabat and Woolwich Dockyard councillor Dominic Mbang – published this week.

Cameron Blackshaw is the Local Democracy Reporter for Greenwich. The Local Democracy Reporting Service is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media. Additional editing by Darryl Chamberlain.

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