An award-winning folk venue in King’s Cross a month to fight for its survival as it scrambles to pay £99,000 in backdated rent from the pandemic.
The Harrison Pub has until September 17 to find the funds to save the venue after being instructed to pay its landlords the full rent for the property during the Covid period - when the pub was forced to close due to restrictions in place at the time.
The 20-year-old pub was locked in a four-year battle with its landlords, the Wellington Pub Company, over the rent payments but has been asked to pay just shy of six figures following a High Court battle.
The pub’s landlord Paul Michelmore said: “As you can imagine, the whole process has been pretty hard to swallow.”
He told the Standard: “When I took the pub over Harrison Street was full of prostitutes and junkies.
“The only reason cars aren’t robbed every single day on Harrison Street is because we are there making it a nice place to be.
“If we shut, it would be drug dealing central. That would be full of junkies all day, all night.
“We are the only place where everybody mixes from the Bengali boys to the old white geezers from the estate who have lived there from the 1920s.
“Or the solicitors and lawyers who come and work in London, the students at SOAS, all these people mix together next to each other - 18-year-old to 80-year-old. White, black, gay, straight.
“That’s the beautiful thing, that’s why pubs are important. They are the only point where all these polarised communities meet and cross. If it wasn’t for places like pubs you would stay in your tribe.”
So far the pub has managed to pay off £45,000 of its debt, with a further £30,000 accounted for. However, the venue has now “exhausted all other options” and has been forced to turn to the public for help to raise between £20,000 and £24,000.
If it is unable to do so the 60-person capacity venue will have to close.
A Crowdfunder page written by Mr Michelmore and signed by the pub’s staff added: “We have built The Harrison from the worst pub in Kings Cross (really!!) into a cherished, award-winning and officially recognised Asset of Community Value. Sadly, this is now all under threat.
“Like all pubs and venues, the Pandemic hit The Harrison hard. The Government closed us in the Lockdowns, placed crippling trading restrictions during Social Distancing and paid our customers to stay out of Central London during Furlough.
“We were also excluded from the lucrative Cultural Recovery Fund, which saved many UK venues, just because I am registered as a Sole Trader rather than a Limited Company.”
So far over £6,000 has been raised for the pub.
Last summer the pub was made an asset for community value by Camden Council, meaning the community will have six months to try and bid for the pub if it is put up for sale.
