Committee hears that the bar in Ashfield Parade had seen “the highest volume of noise nuisances” the council’s licensing team had ever seen, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A café and bar in Southgate has had its premises licence revoked following a record 35 noise complaints in eight months.

Enfield Council’s licensing sub-committee decided to remove Accro’s premises licence, and reject an application to transfer licence holders, following a series of noise complaints from locals. The venue has also previously been known as 6 Kitchen and Rumours.

The committee deliberated on the decision for over three hours during a hearing on Wednesday (17th), which was in part due to the applicant, Stavroula Tsakou, needing a translator.

Midway through the hearing, Stavroula’s translator was changed to a council officer who spoke the same language. This was due to the legal advisor being dissatisfied with the translator and applicant’s questioning during the council officer and police statements.

Parties are permitted to ask questions after statements have been read.

The council’s principal licensing officer Ellie Green, when introducing the application, pointed out that the case had prompted “the highest volume of noise nuisances” her team had ever seen.

The majority of complaints against Accro, located at 6 Ashfield Parade, were made during the early hours of the morning, which was a “continued breach of hours”.

Ellie said the owners had “ignored” warnings and had, prior to the licensing review, been issued a fixed penalty notice (FPN) following a breach of a noise abatement notice.

During the hearing, it emerged Stavroula had not been aware of the amount of noise complaints. She refuted that the police had contacted them, saying they were only made aware when the council “forwarded an email from the police” which was only a “couple of months ago”.

Ellie said: “They [the applicant] have had plenty of opportunities and chances to amend their ways. Despite some attempts at noise attenuation, it has been unsuccessful, which demonstrates the venue is not an appropriate place to play any music above background level.”

A premises licence is required for a venue to sell alcohol or offer entertainment. Following the decision of the committee, the premises will only be able to operate as a cafe.

The Metropolitan Police, which supported the review and revocation of the licence, said its officers had received reports of smoking regulations being breached and “loud parties” sometimes lasting until “5am and 6am” when the conditions stated they were only permitted to open until 11.30pm and 1.30am.

On one occasion, the police responded to reports of fights outside the venue. The police officer present at the hearing said: “There are other licence premises within the vicinity but none with terminal times as late as times shown for your premises.”

The police officer added the application to transfer licence holders should be rejected as he thought it was an attempt to “muddy the water”.

Stavroula said the fight had not been connected to Accro and they had kept their doors “locked” when that took place. The applicant also stated they had put in a sound limiter following communication with the council and expressed a wish to “work with the council to resolve the issue”.

Committee chair Mahyn Bedekova, reading out the hearing’s decision, made jointly with councillors Chris Dey and George Savva, said: “The licencing sub-committee on balance has made the decision to promote the licencing objectives [and] reject the application to transfer the premises licence, and secondly to revoke the licence entirely.”

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