"Completely Inappropriate" Crescent Club Closes
West Kensington venue was scene of 2009 murder
West Kensington nightclub The Crescent Club has closed down, with notices in the windows stating that the property is in the hands of bailiffs.
Last June, 32 year-old Ali Toprak was stabbed to death outside the club's entrance on North End Road following a Turkish themed evening there. Berkan Kart, 22, from Tottenham, will stand trial for his murder and violent disorder in March.
At the start of 2010, another man was stabbed on the street outside the bar in a mass brawl involving around 20 people.
The club has been controversial since November 2008, when licensee Passion Night Ltd when it applied for a variation of the licence to turn the then Fox Tavern into a lap-dancing venue.
This was refused by the council’s licensing sub-committee, who received more than 1,000 letters of objection from local people and a petition signed by 250 residents.
In the first six months of the Crescent Club opening, there were three separate reports suggesting that drugs were being used both inside and outside the club, according to police. There was also an increase in public nuisance and disorder, and the council received 20 complaints about noise.
Joe Carlebach, co-chair of the Avonmore & Brook Green Safer Neighbourhood Ward Panel, has lived in the area for nearly 17 years, and says that the bar had been "completely inappropriate" for the residential area.
"This was a completely inappropriate venture from the start," he says. " If the club had done more to work with the community then maybe there wouldn’t have been so many problems, but they didn’t want to. They ended up completely alienating the community and completely misjudged things."
Passion Nights Limited is now due to appear at Companies Court on February 24 for a winding-up hearing.
Says Joe: " Given the history of this club, residents would be very wary of another similar venue opening up, and anyone coming here should know that residents will be heavily involved in the licensing process and will take it very seriously.”
February 17, 2010
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