A London pub where staff “downplayed” a man being stabbed in the thigh will be able to reopen in three months.
The Frankfort Arms on Harrow Road, near Maida Hill, will now close an hour earlier and no longer host karaoke sessions or private entertainment without first applying for permission, according to a decision by Westminster City Council.
The pub’s landlord, Craft Union, proposed these changes ahead of Monday’s (June 16) licensing meeting in Victoria. The pub will now run until 11.30pm weekends under new operators.
Craft Union, which proposed the three-month suspension, also pledged to keep the venue shut until it finds the “right people” to run it and to seek council permission before hosting karaoke sessions.
Gary Grant, representing Stonegate, the parent company of Craft Union, said: “[The Frankfort Arms] has been a community pub for 150 years. Things have gone wrong recently and we intend to put things right.
“Hopefully you take it from [Stonegate licensing director] Mr [Paul] Wright that he is, through his team, going to micromanage the premises, because it needs it, and we are asking for the opportunity to do so.
“It’s the first review this pub has ever faced and we want to respond properly to the review and we feel we have done. We want the opportunity to continue and get it right so the community can continue to have a pub.”
James Rankin, representing the Metropolitan Police, said a spate of violent offences in the pub had left residents living in a “climate of fear”. He recounted testimony from a Met officer detailing an increase in drug activity in the months leading up the incident and how crime and disorder had decreased since the pub shut in May.
He also said police ended their investigation into the stabbing after witnesses failed to come forward. They said Frankfort Arms staff and security guards did not provide information.
Katya K, an objector, said the boozer had been “shambolically run” by its previous operators while fellow resident Jackie pleaded with councillors to keep the building open. She said: “It’s one of the few things people have had and been able to enjoy. Doesn’t mean it has to be a pub. It could be a community facility where we are still meeting the needs of our residents.”
Craft Union has agreed to carry out more in-person checks and to improve information sharing between the pub and headquarters. Mr Grant said many of the issues raised by objectors, including street parties, continued to take place while the pub was shut.
He also knocked back suggestions a 2020 shooting was linked to the pub. He said: “It is not a silver bullet to revoke the licence of this pub. This particular corner of Harrow Road is not suddenly going to turn into a peaceful Cotswolds village.”
Craft Union closed the Frankfort Arms on May 19 and fired the operators ahead of an emergency licence review. The meeting, which took place at Westminster City Council on May 22, resulted in a licence suspension, a ban on the sale of alcohol and the immediate removal of the Designated Premises Supervisor.
The Metropolitan Police requested a review of the Frankford Arms’ premises licence after it was associated with “serious crime and disorder” last month. Officers visited the pub shortly after midnight on May 17 and were told by the manager that a fight had taken place but no one had been injured.
Around 20 minutes later, police received a call from St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington saying a man had presented himself to A&E with a single stab wound to the thigh. They were able to link the man to the incident at the Frankfort Arms.
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