Britain’s oldest nightclub famed for its notorious sticky carpet is selling chunks of its vintage flooring for up to £50 a piece to nostalgic revellers. The Acapulco in Halifax, West Yorkshire, is known to punters for its distinctive, swirly patterned adhesive floor covering as much as for its 75p drinks offers.
And now boozers have the chance to buy a souvenir section of the sticky rug with prices ranging from £5 for an A4 sized piece to £50 for a larger, framed piece. Owner Simon Jackson was inspired after hearing a young clubber celebrating his 18th birthday tell how his parents met at the club and his grandmother had worked there.
Now, having been on sale for just a day, it has sold more than 100 pieces already and raised £1,000 for the local Street Angels charity, which helps homeless people.
Owner Simon Jackson said: "It started as a bit of a joke, I had a conversation with a lad celebrating his 18th and he said his grandmother used to work there and his mother met his father there. There were three generations of the same family celebrating.
"The mother said 'I remember the carpet, it is the same one?' and I said it probably is. I told her changing the carpet has been on the list of things to do for a few years but things kept getting in the way.
"They said 'we should take a piece of it as it's part of their family history and a few other people said they'd take a piece. We got to thinking how many people have met here and had first kisses, birthdays whatever here."
The joke quickly snowballed and Simon - who worked as a DJ in the early 90s before buying the club in 1995 - decided to cut some pieces and sell them to punters.
He added: "We knew Street Angels were struggling for money so we thought we'd try to get some money for them as they don't get any funding. Sales went live at 2.30pm on Wednesday and by 4.30pm we'd sold over 100 pieces.
"By 5pm that night we'd raised over £1,000 for the charity so hopefully we can get a few thousand for them. If we'd got a couple of hundred quid we'd have been happy. It's just blown up, we couldn't cope with the demand.
"We've had to dig it out of the skip and clean it up to the rest of it."
The club has been a staple of nightlife in the former mill town since 1961 and generations have walked on its infamous carpet for more than 20 years.
Simon added: "It's famous for three things; being really old, selling drinks for 75p and the carpet. It doesn't even look that bad, it's just going thin in places."
The club has created a grid-like map so anyone interested in buying a piece of the carpet can identify the specific spot they would like.
Simon added: "It would be great if people could buy the spot of the carpet where they had their first kiss or they first met."
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