Kate and Wills party bar loses its licence to serve alcohol

TIS THE season for the royals to eat, drink and be merry — but a scandal at the louche restaurant where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge held their staff Christmas party could kill the festive mood.

Kate and William were joined by Prince Harry and fiancée Meghan Markle as they treated 60 Kensington Palace employees to a £110-a-head dinner at Beach Blanket Babylon in West London last Wednesday.

The restaurant and bar in fashionable Notting Hill has already earned an unsavoury reputation thanks to an infestation of German cockroaches and ‘public nuisance issues’ created by the bar’s drunk and disorderly clientele.

Now the hangover is kicking in. I can reveal that hours after Kate and William were chauffeured back to Kensington Palace after a three- course dinner in Beach Blanket Babylon’s upstairs ballroom, the royals’ party venue lost its licence to serve alcohol.

Last Thursday, Kensington and Chelsea council’s licensing committee refused to grant permission for ‘the sale of alcohol by retail’. The decision notice says: ‘The committee has decided, after taking into account all of the individual circumstances of the case, that the application does not promote the licensing objectives.’

The ruling will be a relief to sleep- deprived residents, who say they can hear ‘every drunken shriek with the accompanying pounding music’, when drinkers spill out from the restaurant.

According to files submitted to the council, police have been called to break up fights, and ‘ conspicuous patches of vomit’ have been left in the street and on the bonnet of a resident’s car.

Another local alleges drugs are taken at the club, especially in the upstairs rooms during private parties.

Beach Blanket Babylon is owned by entrepreneur Robert Newmark and his sons, Brett and Rex.

In 2016, Robert and Brett were banned from acting as company directors for a combined eight-and-a-half years for running up large debts while trading insolvently. Rex works as a chef in Beach Blanket Babylon’s Shoreditch restaurant, and came fourth in the 2008 series of Big Brother. This year, he avoided a prison sentence after assaulting his girlfriend, Emma Blackman.

The Newmarks reapplied for the licence at their Notting Hill restaurant after it expired in August. The venue has also been blocked from serving ‘ late- night refreshments’ up to 12.30am, and staying open until 5am on New Year’s Eve.

A spokesman for Babylon declined to comment.