A Plumstead bar has had its licence removed after staff became involved in a street fight outside the venue.
Danfe Restaurant and Club has lost its licence to sell alcohol after a fight took place outside it last month.
The fight happened outside the premises on Walmer Terrace at approximately 11.33pm on March 2, according to the application for review sent by the Met Police. The report also claimed that no staff members from the restaurant contacted the police throughout the incident or afterwards.
The police report said: “CCTV from the local authority was viewed. This showed a group of around nine people on Walmer Terrace fighting and some were using buckled belts. The designated premises supervisor was then seen armed with what appears to be a wooden chair leg. He proceeds to get involved with the fight and can be seen striking one of the males.”
It added: “Another member of staff from the premises is also seen with a large wooden bat-like object hitting one of the male suspects whilst out on the street. The police quickly arrive and arrest four suspects.”
The topic was discussed at a licensing review meeting for Greenwich Council on April 2. Licensing barrister James Rankin said at the meeting that the second staff member was in fact holding a long handled metal spatula when leaving the premises during the incident, instead of a wooden bat.
He also criticised the premises supervisor, Bishnu Tripathi, for initially telling police he did not have CCTV cameras on the side of the building where the fight occurred.
Mr Rankin: “He presented himself as somebody that was not de-escalating the situation but escalating it. His presence there, armed as he was, with a member of staff, armed as they were, was not a way to solve this problem.”
Mr Tripathi, who also owns the site, said he did not call the police on March 2 as he assumed an individual involved in the fight had already done so when he came into the restaurant while he was on the phone.
The owner said the groups involved in the incident were originally sitting inside the restaurant and began shouting at approximately 11pm before moving outside the building.
Mr Tripathi said at the meeting: “I opened the shutter, I went outside. [Someone] hit me by the belt while swearing. I was a little bit aggressive, I got mad. Then I brought out the stick and said, ‘OK go away,’. I made a mistake, I know that. As the licence holder and the premises supervisor, I shouldn’t have done that.”
The owner said he agreed to provide police with CCTV footage on the night of the incident. He said that he was happy to agree to any sanction the police or licensing sub-committee felt was appropriate. He also said that the item he was holding in the footage was not a chair leg but a wooden stand used for holding lollipops in the restaurant.
He said: “It was not a wooden chair. It was a stand for the sweets where lollipops hang off from, [about the length of my forearm]. It’s a stick, not a chair leg.”
The licensing sub-committee said in its decision notice, published last week, that they felt Mr Tripathi had escalated the violence in the event on March 2 when it appeared it had been coming to an end. They criticised him for not calling the police and not preventing staff from joining the fight and decided the premises licence for the restaurant was to be revoked as a result.
The decision means that Danfe Restaurant and Club will no longer be able to sell alcohol or serve late night refreshments after 11pm. The venue is also no longer permitted to play recorded or live music during its opening hours.
The committee said that the licence was to be suspended until the time to appeal against the licence being removed entirely had expired. Mr Tripathi has 21 days to appeal the decision of the committee to the magistrates’ court.
