Some of the articles we write really catch on and get shared all over the place – and some don’t. Early last year, the local news website Lavender-Hill.uk posted something especially niche-interest: “Lambeth’s Planning officers face the interesting question of whether Dirty Blonde is a bar or a club“. It was the stuff of geeks, going in to the lesser known backrooms of planning and licensing policy. A couple of hundred of you read it at the time; whether you made it to the end is debatable!

Dirty Blonde was a controversial business for its neighbours, and we saw fairly regular reporting of late night chaos – not that crime is a topic we cover much. However it had nothing of the wider profile that some of the previous clubs at the site used to have (notably Inigo, which was hugely popular).

All that changed on the 29th September, when 24-year-old Dontae McLaren was murdered in a fight between about 20 people in the middle of the road outside the venue. Exactly what happened has yet to be fully mapped out (and we won’t be commenting on it here, given there’s an ongoing legal case), though it was at closing time for the club, and the sad loss of a young life followed significant ongoing concerns abut the management of the venue.

The whole area was closed for two days for a forensic investigation of the road surface – leaving Premier Inn’s guests somewhat marooned, both Tesco and Sainsbury’s closed, and all buses suspended. Our little-known article suddenly gained enormous numbers of readers. We suspect Lambeth’s licensing officers were also having a quick look at the status of the club – especially given that it had been operating in what was a bit of a licensing grey area for some years. Dirty Blonde’s license was suspended almost immediately, followed by the announcement of a Summary Review – on the grounds that a senior police officer was satisfied that ‘the premises are associated with both serious crime and disorder following an altercation outside the premises which resulted in a male being fatally stabbed‘.

That licensing review was held on the 25th October, and as the helpful report on Open Council Network shows, it was a pretty open-and-shut case! It got off to a bad start for Dirty Blonde when it wasn’t too clear that they had sent the right people along to represent themselves, and it emerged that was some confusion within the business on who even was the premises licensee.

Lambeth, as the licensing authority, argued that a load of licensing conditions had been breached – including a lack of CCTV footage available for review by the police and licensing officers, the lack of an incident log, insufficient security staff, with inadequate SIA badging, training, supervision and communication equipment, the use of external promoters’ security staff, and – maybe most pertinently to the sad case of Mr McLaren – inadequate control of patrons leaving the premises.

The Met Police didn’t share all their input in public (presumably as a legal case was ongoing) – but noted they had concerns about how the venue was being run, as knives had been spotted inside the venue despite them being informed that there is a robust search regime in place; they were also concerned about a lack of CCTV. Councillors noted that the venue was ‘a magnet for anti-social behaviour that in turn fuels an atmosphere where crime occurs‘, and that not revoking the license would be irresponsible of the council and risk further unnecessary tragic fatalities.

Linda Bray, ward councillor for Clapham Town, reported on complaints she had received about the premises going all the way back to 2019 – including the lack of a licence for the premises to operate as a nightclub, and the impact this had on the council’s ability to regulate its activities, a lack of communication from the premises about when events were taking place, the venue’s failure to respond to previous attempts at engagement with the council and the police, and suspicions that it was potentially also operating as an unlicensed sex premises.

Twenty nine members of the public – many from neighbouring street Victoria Rise – also opposed the reopening of Dirty Blonde, and reported a litany of anti-social behaviour, crime and noise nuisance associated with the club – inclding drug dealing and use, fighting, shouting and screaming, and cars playing loud music in the side streets – with many having a clear fear of walking past the premises at night.

The past lack of response by both Police and Council to previous concerns was a frequent theme – with some shock that it has taken the loss of a young life to get a proper review of the license. This was backed up by the Regulatory Noise and Antisocial Behavious Enforcement Officer, who made similar points on behalf of Public Protection.

This was only realistically going to go one way – and the licensing hearing concluded that there was sufficient evidence to show breaches of the licence, and the licensing committee was not satisfied that the premises licence holder could be trusted to operate the premises consistently with the licensing objectives, or that any option other than revoking the license was appropriate.

Since then the premises has had a minor clear-out, with the stickers removed from the windows, and it is now up for lease with Jarvis Keller for around £90,000 a year. Residents of Victoria Rise will be crossing their fingers that it doesn’t return to all-night club use – although Lambeth’s previous refusal of planning permission for a Certificate of Lawful Development (Existing) with respect to the use of the property as a nightclub (which kicked off our first report on the venue – where planners had denied planning permission for ongoing club use, but at the same time left a late night club license in place), and the tragic events since then, makes a new late ‘club’ license unlikely.

It’s a relatively large unit, as these photos from the listing show – with 3,300 square feet of space spread over the ground floor and basement – in a fairly busy area; and it could see a fair number of uses. Although it’s not seen any food trade for years, we understand that there’s still an extractor flue in place that would allow for food preparation. Historically it was a pub, the Victoria, whose name can still be seen in the stonework on the upper floors of the building – but the lack of outdoor areas and narrow pavement probably mean it’s more likely to become something else – like the Vet’s premises next door, or the growing number of specialist businesses (gyms, property businesses, interior decorators, trade suppliers…) at this end of the street. If this sounds like a premises you could do something with, you’ll want to contact Jarvis Keller.

Dirty Blonde – previously Inigo, Blake’s, Grind, and The Victoria – was at 642 Wandsworth Road, London, SW8 3JW.

This article was originally published on lavender-hill.uk.