A new restaurant on the site of a former Leeds bar with a history of violence and stabbings has applied for a licence to sell alcohol. The old Shaftesbury Pool Club, on Harehills Lane in east Leeds, was described by one police officer as “one of the worst bars I’ve dealt with” at a licensing hearing on Tuesday.
Three stabbings occurred in the space of just three months at the premises in 2019, which led to it being shut down, though it had had brushes with the law on several previous occasions. The venue recently reopened as TK Restaurant. The two owners behind the business, who are taxi drivers by trade, say the new diner is serving the local Eritrean community.
But police and licensing officers have objected to its application to the city council for an alcohol licence, claiming the restaurant is a front for the owner of the old bar, Salman Haydaran, who they accuse of being responsible for its troubles. The restaurant’s owners say they’ve sub-let the premises from Mr Haydaran at a cost of £3,000 a month, but insist he will have no involvement in the running of the business.
