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Fabric to fight closure

By | Published on Friday 9 September 2016

#savefabric

Fabric will appeal the decision to revoke its licence, it has been confirmed. The Night Time Industries Association has also set up a fund to try to raise £500,000 towards the legal costs likely to be run up in pursuing the case.

The plan to launch an appeal was first revealed yesterday to Mixmag by Deputy Chair of the Night Time Industries Association – Proud Galleries owner Alex Proud – who said that he would also donate £10,000 to the fund himself. The news was then confirmed to Resident Advisor by Fabric co-founder Cameron Leslie.

Earlier this week, after Islington Council decided to revoke its licence on Tuesday night, the venue’s management said that it was too early to say what their response would be, but nevertheless commented that the decision “sets a troubling precedent for the future of London’s night time economy”.

In its ruling, the council said that “a culture of drugs exists at the club which management cannot control”. However, in a speech at the hearing, Leslie questioned how his venue had suddenly gone from being commended for its drugs policy to being deemed out of control. He suggested that the recent licence review, and the police report which made up the bulk of evidence against Fabric, had been “an entirely premeditated exercise to find the evidence required to be able to serve a summary review”.

Fabric has beaten Islington Council in court before, of course. Late last year, it fought off attempts to impose new security arrangements onto the club that management argued would not make customers safer, and could potentially put them at greater risk.

Such legal action is costly though, and on the previous occasion Fabric went legal, at least the club was still operating, so that the business was bringing in revenue. Going to court after your company has basically been shut down is all the more challenging from a financial perspective.

A conspiracy theorist might suggest that, having been caught out once before, Islington Council had considered all of this before it launched its latest licensing review, some now seeing said review as basically constituting a vendetta against Fabric.

Though officials at the council possibly underestimated how much support there would be for the club, and/or didn’t realise that they were setting a precedent that would create concerns and therefore a response from across London’s night time cultural community.

Details of how to donate to the Fund For Fabric have not yet been announced. There is however information on the NTIA’s existing #NightlifeMatters campaign here.



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