Diamond Strip firm’s licence under threat
POLICE CALL FOR REVIEW INTO PLAN TO TRANSFORM FIRM’S BAR
A MULTIMILLION-POUND plan to redevelop Newcastle’s Collingwood Street with five new venues could be scrapped if the leisure firm behind the scheme loses its licence, bosses have warned.
Apartment Group started work on a £2m plan to transform its city centre leisure venues last November, closing the doors forever on its three Diamond Strip bars and clubs – Madame Koo, House of Smith and Florita’s – 16 years after first opening.
They were to be replaced by the Collingwood Collection – five new areas mixing street food, cocktail parlours, nightly live music and entertainment, including a subterranean play zone with a bowling alley and virtual reality zones, karaoke booths and a private members’ club.
Apartment Group is looking to attract an older clientele to the venues with less nightclub space, more seating, more eating and more entertainment.
It follows a bruising period where the bars briefly lost their licence following a police investigation into the dealing of Class A drugs at the venues, as well as others on Collingwood Street.
Now, however, the firm’s chief operations officer, Debrah Dhugga, has warned the redevelopment could come to a halt, leaving the buildings empty for at least a year, if the firm loses its licence to operate from the Collingwood Street addresses at a hearing next week.
She has argued that the review should not take place as the old venues don’t exist any more.
Mrs Dhugga said the project has been put on hold after Northumbria Police asked for a Review of the Premises Licence, and this uncertainty has affected bank funding, with the chance funders could pull all backing for the project, which was expected to create 150 jobs.
She said: “If the Apartment Group loses at the review next Tuesday then it is most likely that the incomplete £2m redevelopment of the venues on Collingwood Street will remain in a state of abandonment for at least a year and probably more, due to lack of bank finance.
“The bank will pull the funding if we lose the review.
“Up to 150 jobs created with the new development will be lost and the knock-on effect throughout the supply chain will be keenly felt too, with a considerable detrimental financial effect on neighbouring businesses such as hotels, taxis, bars and takeaways, as well as our own suppliers. The fact we are having a review over venues that don’t even exist any more seems to me utterly ridiculous. It just does not apply.
“That street desperately needs redevelopment and what we had planned promised to bring something completely different to anything the North East has seen before, while also creating 150 new jobs.
“At a time when national operators are shutting up and leaving the area, and others are handing in their keys, we are an independent, local business striving to create jobs and bring something new.”
Madame Koo, House of Smith and Florita’s were all made to shut their doors for six days over Christmas and New Year 2017, after it emerged staff and promoters were involved in the supply of Class A drugs.
The Operation Doncaster investigation saw 20 people, including doormen, promoters, a bar manager and drug dealers, jailed for a total of more than 50 years.
The three venues were ultimately allowed to remain open, with city councillors ruling in February 2018 that they could keep their licences if they adhered to enhanced measures to prevent the supply and use of drugs on the premises.
But police have instigated a second licence review
of the Apartment Group, which runs the three bars, after further drug use by House of Smith employees. Apartment Group, which currently has 100 staff members on furlough as a result of lockdown measures, said it will strongly defend its case with expert witnesses stating that “the venue is operating a robust and effective drug policy” and that “the drug problem is more a reflection on society than the venue”. The firm also claims that “the police request for a licence review is grossly disproportionate”. A Northumbria Police spokesperson said: “It would not be appropriate for us to comment on an ongoing licence review.”