An East London restaurant has had its licence suspended for two months after it was found to have breached a number of conditions on the night a man was fatally stabbed outside.
Saley Beya, 38, was attacked outside Bronze Royale on Romford Road in Forest Gate during the early hours of August 10.
Mr Beya was found suffering from stab injuries and was taken to hospital where he was placed in an induced coma, but he later died from his injuries on August 29.
According to a police report, officers received a call at 3.41am stating a group of men were ‘attempting to enter the premises with firearms’ and one man was allowed to go into the kitchen area ‘unchallenged’.
Hamza Kamali, 28, of Stratford, was previously charged with causing grievous bodily harm at Stratford Magistrates’ Court on August 19. Following Mr Beya’s death, he has now been charged with murder and has been remanded and is due to appear for trial on June 4, next year.
When police and licensing officers looked at the restaurant’s CCTV footage of August 10, they saw customers being sold alcohol beyond the terminal hour of 2.30am and saw no one was sat down having a meal and were instead standing at the bar ‘drinking from bottles and dancing’.
Police accused the restaurant of ‘operating as a nightclub’ as footage from the following Saturday again showed around a dozen people dancing and staff serving alcohol past 4am.
Police submitted a review application to Newham Council on September 5 as they argued the restaurant had ‘seriously undermined’ the licensing objectives and there had been ‘multiple breaches’ of the licence.
During a meeting with the council’s Licensing Sub-Committee on October 24, a police officer said: “The breaches identified have directly contributed with the causation of the incident resulting in one male potentially going to lose his life.
“The Metropolitan Police Service has lost complete faith in the venue’s ability to operate in line with the licensing objectives, it is blatantly obvious from reviewing the CCTV that this venue has been habitually operating in a non-compliant capacity.”
The review was also supported by the council’s Licensing Enforcement Team, who had ‘very little confidence’ that the restaurant was running in the correct way and was following the conditions.
The restaurant’s solicitor said the licence holders understood a number of conditions had been breached, and suggested a suspension lasting longer than two weeks to allow for more staff training and so he could go through every condition of the licence with them.
He said his clients were also looking at plans to reduce the restaurant’s opening hours and planned to close by 1.30am.
The solicitor said the licence holders were ‘charming people’ and hadn’t realised ‘the consequences of what happened’.
One of the licence holders said: “If we are given another chance, [we will] reduce the hours, make sure that people are sitting down and I’m going to put a big ‘no’ sign at the bar, no standing at the bar, and drink [will] only [be] with food while seated.”
The meeting was adjourned briefly while the committee made their decision in private, which resulted in the licence being suspended for two months as well as changing the restaurant’s opening and closing times and the hours of licensable activities.
Cllr Tonii Wilson, who is Chair of the committee, said: “I hope these two months give you the opportunity to get your business model sorted out once and for all and as you said you’ll be working and operating as a restaurant and nothing else.
“Maybe in due course once you’ve sorted everything out we might see you again.”
