Fabric loses it's license - Closes doors for good

[JayyCee]

Well the police arent the ones that require a license to operate via the council, literally they can revoke it for no reason at all if they wanted.

They gave the council a reason, and that's on them.

Also the Police arent bloody doormen for hire, they kinda have other duties.

And the doormen aren't police, there is only so much either can do. There needs to be time spent finding a middle ground for these situations or are the police just going to shut everywhere down one by one. The club is closed but the people who frequented it are not going to disappear with it.

And they do that how exactly?

There are many clubs who manage to keep drugs issues to a minimum, clearly Fabric couldn't or didn't want to do that. The Police can't just ignore that people are dying in this place.

cant argue with that statement but im not sure this is going to stop the deaths, merely move them somewhere else while making establishments fear the consequences if something bad and drug related happens at their door. possibly leading to them being hesitant to report such things.

 

[Sankari]

"Closing Fabric is not the answer to the drug-related problems clubs like ours are working to prevent, and sets a troubling precedent for the future of London's night time economy."

Wow, they can't possibly have said that with a straight face.

 

[ubern00b]

A friend just made a valid point. Are they going to shut down Carnival? There are more murders, robberies and drug related events happening there YEAR ON YEAR than over the entire course of Fabrics life-span.

 

[Gornall]

It doesn't sound very black-and-white to be honest.

Illegal activities are conducted in all sorts of establishments/buildings, unless it is proven that drugs were a systemic problem with the business itself I fail to see how they should be held responsible to such a degree.

 

[ubern00b]

Wow, they can't possibly have said that with a straight face.

Why not? Is closing the club going to make the 350k clubbers that pass through its doors every year suddenly sit at home drinking mineral water or sipping on their tea?

Or have I misunderstood.

 

[twist3d0n3]

Delusional guy.

Just found one of his shows from RT on Soundcloud, albeit from 2 years ago. Not a bad mix tbh if you're into Jump-up. Hearing a lot of stuff from DJ Pleasure, DJ Sly and the Low Down Deep Recordings camp.

___

Didn't get end up getting banned from OcUK? I recall something about stolen goods?

he used virtual dj. no wonder his mixing was 'ok'.

 

[alx]

The night tube is going to be pointless at this rate. Loads of clubs being shut down.

Unfortunately the club scene seems to be slowly dying out, what 'millennianls' do with their free time/money is changing.

 

[Sankari]

Why not?

Because I don't believe that closing Fabric will have any impact on the drug culture either way.

Fabric seems to want us to believe that if the club is closed, the fight against drugs will lose a champion. I don't buy that for a minute. The owners would have been turning a blind eye, as most of them do.

Nightclubs are not associated with recreational drug by some bizarre and unlikely coincidence. They're associated with recreational drugs because recreational drugs are a big part of the nightclub culture.

 

[Gee]

he used virtual dj. no wonder his mixing was 'ok'.

Hahahaha.

 

[tom_e]

Whatever happened to him?

He's becoming a daddy!

 

[Burnsy2023]

cant argue with that statement but im not sure this is going to stop the deaths, merely move them somewhere else while making establishments fear the consequences if something bad and drug related happens at their door. possibly leading to them being hesitant to report such things.

We've had clubs my way where licensing have closed premises and it's rare for the problem to just "move" to another club.

 

[ubern00b]

Because I don't believe that closing Fabric will have any impact on the drug culture either way.

Agreed.

Fabric seems to want us to believe that if the club is closed, the fight against drugs will lose a champion. I don't buy that for a minute. The owners would have been turning a blind eye, as most of them do.

Well, we can speculate them turning a blind eye all we like, we don't know. As for losing a champion, they will. Fabric has imposed many measures to try and fight the drug problem and has conformed to every single demand by the council and police even as far as putting dogs on the door every single night they were open. No other club has done this.

Nightclubs are not associated with recreational drug by some bizarre and unlikely coincidence. They're associated with recreational drugs because recreational drugs are a big part of the nightclub culture.

Agreed. So how do we tackle this? Closing clubs and forcing the problem elsewhere? Prohibition has taught us nothing it seems.

 

[Werewolf]

Yeah it's a bit of a double standard really. There was usually police around outside fabric so aren't they just as much to blame as the people searching on the doors?

The doormen and club have a degree of responsibility for what goes on on inside the club (including trying to prevent drug dealing), the Police are not there purely for the club.

In the same sort of way that it's the Clubs responsibility to make sure it's staff know the law about serving alcohol in regards to age and how drunk the buyer is.

If club staff were dealing then that would be a very big issue for the people deciding on the club's licences, especially if the management were seen to not have taken reasonable steps to keep an eye on what their staff were doing (in the same way that both the person who sells alcohol to underage people, and the employer can be held accountable and if it happens repeatedly the licencee will lose their licence). Employers tend to be expected to know what their staff are doing within reasonable limits, such as whilst on the job, and take steps to make sure the staff know what is allowable, what the law is, and preferably document it so they can show they've taken those steps.

What about the 108 people who died in police custody over the same period that the club was open? Shall we ignore that instead?

If that's the usual way that that stat is used it's incredibly misleading, as from memory it's actually "death after contact" rather than whilst in police custody/the cells/back of the van, so someone could drop dead of a heart attack whilst talking to the police and it would be counted, or someone could die of a drug overdose whilst the police are giving them first aid and waiting for an ambulance, or could commit suicide the day after they've left police custody (IIRC it includes deaths within a set period after police contact).
There have been cases where members of the public have restrained someone whilst they waited for the police and when the restrained person died it was counted as death in police custody, despite the police recognising that the person was not breathing upon their arrival and immediately giving first aid.

It's also worth noting that every "death in custody" is investigated, usually by a third party.

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

The club has done everything in it's power to try tackle the problem. I have been there on numerous occasions where they have busted people on the door with things, they had an amnesty bucket for people to put things in themselves. I have witnessed people dragged off the dancefloor or smoking area and into private rooms to be dealt with. I have even witnessed said private room door being ajar and someone being given a beating (not the best way to deal with it but it goes some way to show they were TRYING).

The last time their license was under threat the council wanted sniffer dogs on the door. They complied. I cannot tell you the number of sniffer dogs friends of mine have walked past, petted, you know name with substances on them and nothing from the dog.

In my opinion, the only thing closing the club says to me is that the Police failed in THEIR duties. Why is it up to the club to have sole responsibility to "fix" this issue. Isn't this what the police are there for? Crack teams and programmes to bus suppliers, importers etc? Where is their responsibility in all of this?

The club probably did everything it needed to do when the spot light was on them and no more. To be honest your brief description is of a club that beats up its patrons who are found with drugs and frequented by people like yourself who are happy for friends to take their drugs in to sell.

Also it isn't the police's job to work in the club, that is not what they are for.

With the amount of drugs in clubs its a wonder any of them remain open.

 

[twist3d0n3]

The club probably did everything it needed to do when the spot light was on them and no more. To be honest your brief description is of a club that beats up its patrons who are found with drugs and frequented by people like yourself who are happy for friends to take their drugs in to sell.

Also it isn't the police's job to work in the club, that is not what they are for.

With the amount of drugs in clubs its a wonder any of them remain open.

if there wasn't drugs in clubs a lot what go out of business...

 

[Burnsy2023]

if there wasn't drugs in clubs a lot what go out of business...

Perhaps it's for the best then.

 

[Liquidfox]

From what I've heard from people that have been there, Fabric had some of the tightest security measures going. Several searches/detectors at various points around the huge queuing area. Sure, you're never going to stop it all. Just as you never will with a festival. Creamfields had a fatality this year, Police released a statement before the event to say that they were severely stepping up detection to prevent any drugs entering the venue. That didn't happen, drugs were everywhere as they always are.

Saying they closed the venue because of drugs is absolute rubbish, it's definitely due to other reasons.

 

[twist3d0n3]

Perhaps it's for the best then.

for some, sure. personally, i enjoy that scene as do a ****load of other people.

 

[mid_gen]

They've never been anti-drugs, they've just been good at appearing anti-drugs to the authorities.

 

[Burnsy2023]

They've never been anti-drugs, they've just been good at appearing anti-drugs to the authorities.

Apparently, they weren't even good at appearing to be anti-drugs.