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Published: 28 January 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

A REPORT has revealed the negative effects on the lives of Camden Town residents of pubs and clubs staying open into the early hours under changes to licensing laws.
As part of a statutory review, the Licensing Working Group, made up of four cross-party councillors, set out to assess the impact of the 2003 Licensing Act which means venues can apply to serve alcohol all night.
They discovered “an observable trend in longer opening hours” which has led to increased anti-social behaviour such as urinating in doorways, vomit and litter in the streets, and noise nuisance over the past four years.
Anti-social crime in Camden Town has also remained stubbornly unchanged while crime in the rest of the borough has gone down.
The figures were revealed following comments from Chalk Farm resident Vijay Mistry earlier this month, who told the New Journal life in the area had become unbearable due the number venues staying open late.
Mr Mistry, who says he has the support of his neighbours, wants to employ a human rights lawyer to force the Town Hall to restrict opening times on the grounds that his family life and ­privacy have been damaged.
Councillor Kirsty Roberts, Camden’s licensing chief, accepted his calls to carry out a survey assessing the cumulative impact the rash of new bars and late-night clubs have had on families living in the area. But she claimed that Camden Town was London’s equivalent to New York’s Tribeca, a trendy Manahattan area known for its nightlife and urban cool, and warned that it was a personal “choice” to live among its hubbub.
Under its status as a special policy area (SPA), officials are urged to refuse new licences in Camden Town. However, as the report shows, because there is nothing to stop licensing chiefs granting later hours to bars, “the outcomes at licensing panel are almost identical to the picture borough-wide” in the Camden Town SPA.
Cllr Roberts said a new review would consider whether the right balance has been struck, and said in the future they could presume to reject new bids for variations to hours.
“That’s something we’ll be covering in the next review,” she said.
“We have to review our policy based on the evidential data and if that’s what the data is telling us we have clear grounds to implement that as well.”
The report shows that boroughwide around 30 per cent of pubs and bars now close at 1am on weekends, compared to less than 10 per cent two years ago. It also shows that the rise in licensed venues in Camden Town is virtually the same as the overall picture in Camden: there was a 32 per cent rise in Camden Town compared to 33 per cent boroughwide.
Police figures show that while alcohol-related violent crimes are going down in the borough, it has remained the same in Camden Town and gone up around the Tube station.
Fights, robberies and sexual assaults have been a mainstay on Friday and Saturday nights in the “hotspot area” of Camden Town, the report says.
Of 6,195 recorded crimes between 2005 and 2009, 1,245 took place in Camden Town special policy area.
The report recognised there had been “a long-term increase in complaints across the borough” with a “noticeable spike” between 2007-8 when the smoking ban came into effect.
Another that is a particular bugbear for Camden Town locals, is finding urine and vomit splattered on their front doors. The report reveals that since 2005, roughly 75 complaints about “anti-social deposits” were made each year within a 100 square metre area of Camden Town.
New policy stemming from the results of the review will be in place by 2011.