Published
Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 13:00
- The club and its lawyers have shed light on their successful case, which took one year of preparation.
fabric has released a statement following its court victory against Islington Council.
On December 10th the famed London nightclub successfully appealed the council's proposed licensing conditions, which included sniffer dogs at the door and ID scans for all customers. Now, the club has made a brief statement: "We feel that this statement reflects the opinions of many businesses operating within the night time industry in regards to these conditions. Everyone at fabric is delighted with the outcome and are very much looking forward to resuming our positive, long standing and solid relationships with both Islington Council's licensing department and the borough's police to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for our club goers and local residents."
The club also pointed to a statement made by fabric's lawyers, Woods Whur, who revealed that the case took a year of planning. They say that District Judge Allison, who oversaw the case, ruled that "the use of a drugs dog could undermine the licensing objectives in a number of unintended ways, including causing drugs to remain in circulation that would otherwise have been confiscated under fabric's thorough search procedures."
The judge also dismissed the ID scan option pushed by the council. According to Woods Whur, Judge Allison said that "there was no evidence that the premises had issues with underage entry/sales; that to deploy it at fabric would adversely affect the length of the queue, with possible public order consequences; and that it would create problems for the significant number of non-UK customers who would not necessarily carry photo ID."
Photo credit: Sarah Ginn