Two popular Soho restaurants which just months ago had their owner and his brother barred following a string of licensing breaches have applied to have the pair reinstated.
Ali Aksu and his brother, Mehmet Aksu, were both banned from working at either Violet’s or the neighbouring Mediterranean Café after repeated breaches including selling alcohol without food.
While Westminster City Council opted not to revoke the venues’ licences, both of which are owned by Ali, it lay much of the blame at the feet of the two men.
At the hearing in January, PC Steve Muldoon from the Met Police told members an ‘immense’ amount of effort had gone into helping Ali run his restaurants in-line with their licensing conditions.
“This is the second review in four years and on top of this, all the prosecutions since, have made absolutely no difference,” he said.
“I have personally made numerous attempts to explain the licensing conditions, and I hope Mr Aksu can agree with that, on a number of occasions over a period of years… Now I see it as a blatant refusal to follow the conditions that have been listed.”
A condition was proposed by the representative of Ali, and subsequently agreed by the council’s Licensing Sub-Committee, that neither brother would work at the premises.
The decision notice goes as far as to state “the problem is Ali and Mehmet Aksu”, adding: “The Committee are satisfied that if Ali and Mehmet Aksu are not permitted to work at the Premises and the new DPS operates in compliance with the terms of the Premises Licence, the licensing objectives will be promoted.”
Despite this, applications have been submitted with the council by both venues requesting the condition barring the brothers from working at either premises be removed. No other changes are sought.
The Licensing Authority and the Met Police have filed objections to the submissions, as have a couple of residents.
In the Met’s objection, PC Muldoon wrote: “The condition that is being applied to be removed was added just a number of months ago during a review hearing. This was added at the licence holders request and was a proposal put forward by the licence holder’s barrister as an alternate [sic] to revoking the licence.
“Whilst I understand the issues of employment, Mehmet Aksu it was however clear that the committee made the decision based of both Mehmet Aksu and his brother having no working part of the business. The committee report even goes as far to say “The problem is Ali and Mehmet Aksu”.”
PC Muldoon added Mehmet has been seen working both by himself and another officer “on at least three occasions”, putting him in breach of the condition.
At a Licensing Sub-Committee meeting earlier today (August 21) a slight variation to the request was proposed, which if approved would allow Mehmet and Ali to undertake “back of house administrative and manual tasks” while remaining banned from any managerial work.
Gary Grant, a barrister at Francis Taylor Building representing the applicants, told members that while he cannot make a “claim to perfection” in relation to his clients the issues that led to the licence being reviewed in January have been resolved.
The reason for the request to vary the conditions, he added, was to enable either Mehmet or Ali to step in and help when additional staff members are required.
He said there had been instances when the venues had not had two personal licence holders on the premises, something that is required by condition.
One such occasion was on August 14, when due to a licence holder being sick and another late to work, there was a period when none were on-site.
Mr Grant claimed this had forced the businesses to spend hundreds of pounds per night when such issues have arisen on agency workers to ensure the premises can open.
James Hayes, from the Licensing Authority, said his team would maintain their objection despite the proposed amendment to ban the brothers from managerial jobs only.
While he acknowledged he was not aware of any licensing breaches since the review in January, he said there had been historic issues with the two venues and that a recent visit had not gone well with officers unable to view CCTV footage.
The Met’s objection was also to remain unchanged, with PC Muldoon describing the premises as being “less than compliant”.
He said every time he and his sergeant had walked past Mehmet had been seen working.
“On one occasion he was seen carrying food, on another occasion seen out the back with posters and things like that, and the last occasion, potentially the most comical, as we were just simply walking past he put his hands up like he’d been caught in the middle of an armed robbery and dropped a beer tray from behind the bar of Violet’s.”
PC Muldoon said he was subsequently shown CCTV footage by Ali showing Mehmet had been there “the entire day”.
Mehmet later disputed that he had been working on these occasions with the site’s DPS, Dritan Berisha, echoing this point.
Summing up, Mr Grant reiterated that the issues raised in January had been resolved, asking: “What is the real harm in allowing them to do back of house work?”
“I think everyone would like this business to survive but in a compliant way, and it may actually help compliance if something like August 14 happens again that Mr Berisha can call upon either of the brothers to step in as the chef and then those in the kitchen can fill in.”
A decision is due to be issued to all relevant parties within five working days.
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