Charity HQ’s drinks licence is a recipe for more mayhem

Published: 17 December, 2010

• THE new tenant of the Angel Centre, Cancer Research UK, is applying for a licence to sell alcohol. But there is a glaring mismatch between its official plan as reported (Neighbours bid to ban drinks at charity’s HQ, December 10) and the wording of the application. 

Its spokeswoman speaks emolliently about “moderate” consumption of alcohol at “occasional” fundraising events. But the application is for the right to sell alcohol “on or off the premises” from seven in the morning until midnight, five days a week. 

It also wants permission for music and dancing from 7pm to 11pm, five nights a week.

When this application is considered in the light of notices plastered all over the renovated building, advertising “restaurant and retail opportunities”, people may be forgiven for thinking that the spokeswoman is being a trifle disingenuous. It all sounds like a recipe for the sort of mayhem which exists every evening in Islington High Street, where such licences have already been granted. 

This is why residents are concerned.

MICHAEL CHURCH
Chadwell Street, EC1