Asif Aziz and Criterion Capital control much of central London around Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. You might remember them due to their negotiations earlier this year with the Prince Charles Cinema, one of their tenants, over plans to replace parts of the cinema with their “windowless hotel concept”.

Now they’re trying to get Picturehouse Central, another cinema tenant, to forfeit its lease, meaning closure is a possibility. Staff at the Picturehouse are also blaming them for the heavy restrictions on the cinema’s members bar and alcohol sales, with suggestions there’s an attempt to make the site financially unviable and possibly even make way for more hotel rooms.

This piece is partly paywalled as it’s London Centric members that fund the reporting but happy to answer any questions on here!

Previous reporting on Asif Aziz and Criterion:
*Repeatedly leased some of central London’s most prominent retail units, which sit underneath Picturehouse Central, to tax evading gift and sweet shops held in the name of overseas students: https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shops-gift-shop-unpaid-tax
*Left occupants of its residential blocks dealing with cockroach infestations: https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-delta-point-croydon-prince-charles-cinema
*Paid substantial damages after being accused in court of running a knock-off Forrest Gump-themed shrimp restaurant: https://www.londoncentric.media/p/kitchen-foil-and-algerian-markets

by londoncentricmedia

11 comments

  1. These guys just want to ruin London for everyone

  3. I was actually in the Picturehouse Central last night, and it was *dead*. We couldn’t figure out what was happening. But the bar, restaurant and members’ bar were all empty, even while the rest of Soho (etc) was heaving.

    If Asif is reading this, they did make us show our ticket stub to have a pint.

    It was pretty grim.

  4. It was clear something was up given the restrictions they’ve had to put on access to the members bar for the last few months,  and it was very obviously not planned enshittification due to the way they’ve messaged it to members and offered various make goods to try and appease them. 

    It’s my favourite cinema in London so I really hope it can be saved.

  9. Is there anything we can do about it, no matter how small? Write to our local MPs? Setup awareness groups? Create a social campaign putting up pictures of him in clown paint all over London?

  10. So have spoken with various people from criterion capitol over the years for work and it always amazes me that no matter who they are, they are always wholly unpleasant to deal with and the projects always disappear within a few days after making loads of demands of everyone around them.

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