Fabric London

It gets worse:

On a hot, drab night on Tuesday 7 September, London’s iconic Fabric nightclub was permanently closed. The trigger for Fabric’s suspension and subsequent closure was allegedly the deaths of two individuals as a result of drug taking on the premises on 25 June and 6 August.

However, documents obtained by The Independent via a Freedom of Information request show that Fabric’s closure was a long pre-planned event, orchestrated by a cash-strapped council, using the police as pawns.

Islington Council’s official statement regarding the closure lists 11 bullet points (below) justifying the decision. Two of these directly relate to the deaths of the two individuals. A further eight relate to an undercover police operation that took place in the venue in July 2016.

The undercover police operation found no hard evidence of drug taking inside the venue, relying instead on vague observations. These observations found their way into the council decision, including that individuals were “manifesting symptoms showing that they were (on drugs). This included sweating, glazed red eyes and staring into space,” and also that “people in the smoking area enquiring about the purchase of drugs…I believe within earshot of the security officer”.

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Islington Council’s statement

In fact, the original undercover police report itself also reported that “the general atmosphere of the club was friendly and non-threatening” and that “there was a diverse demographic in regards to race, [with people speaking] French, Italian and Chinese”. These findings did not make it into the Islington statement.

Undercover police in nightclubs is nothing new, but targeting the venue itself, as opposed to dealers, is. The undercover police report that was used as evidence for Islington Council’s decision was made all the more unusual by the fact it was named ‘Operation Lenor’, presumably after the supermarket fabric softener.

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“Operation Lenor”

So why did the police feel the need to create such a perfunctory report?

The first bullet point of the Islington council decision contains not the recent drugs deaths, but instead mentions the 2014 review of Fabric’s licence. This is significant.

The 2014 review took place following four drug deaths over three and a half years from individuals visiting the premises (of which only one was from drugs supplied inside the venue). The review ruled that sniffer dogs were to be placed outside the venue on rotating shifts for at least 50% of the night:

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That, in itself, is an odd move. Even airports and military bases don’t have dogs at the scanners for half of every working day. Moreover, the council and police dictated these dogs were to be from a private security firm, paid for by Fabric, but approved by the police. This was despite Paddy Whur, the club’s solicitor during the 2014 review, pointing out: “The vast majority of private sector dog providers are not trained to the level that police dogs are. So it’s been difficult finding one to meet the criteria police want.”

Perhaps then, the dogs were meant to be more of a discouragement to would-be drug users than an actual drug-busting mechanism. At any rate, the plan backfired. On 11 December 2015, the terms of Fabric’s operation - notably the use of sniffer dogs - were reversed. The report notes: “The Judge went further and found that the use of a drugs dog could undermine the licensing objectives in a number of unintended ways, including causing drugs to remain in circulation that would otherwise have been confiscated under Fabric’s thorough search procedures.”

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Documents obtained by The Independent via an FOI request relating to the recent suspension of Fabric prior to its review revealed further clarity on the sniffer dog reversal.

Over the course of 918 pages of written letters requesting the club stay open, some 45 pages concern the use of sniffer dogs, noting their inefficiency at detecting drugs, but also frequent suggestions that “sniffer dogs force scared people into consuming all of their drugs before they enter the venue.”

The decision was overturned. Why then did the police feel the need to create “Operation Lenor”, despite the fact that that same police force had recently referred other London venues’ management to Fabric as a bastion of good practice?

Government cuts

Islington council has lost half its funding since 2010. A spending review in 2015 confirmed cuts of £70 million over the next four years. In 2016 alone it stands to lose £17 million. The Islington police, who are partly funded by the council, face similar cuts: anything up to 44% of the staff numbers - or 252 officers.

A paradox exists. Fabric, and the secondary economy around it: the bars, restaurants and late night takeaways that operate in the area, all pay a substantial amount of tax. Likely more than, say, a replacement block of flats or a boutique hotel would. Then there’s the fact that the nighttime economy in the area - including police, employs thousands of people. Why shut it down?

The government’s austerity measures have created cost-cutting across the board. Councils, police forces and other public services are being shunted off as overheads, whilst all the time new building projects and corporate investment appear. Fabric may have made money locally, yet that money never made it’s way back to the council and police in the area.

What’s perhaps most saddening of all is the short-view public reaction of all this. A police force that simply can’t afford to function as it wants to. A council laying off all its own, forced to shut down one if its borough’s treasured icons via a hopelessly half-hearted police report from an officer who noted how much fun the club was, yet social media becomes awash with criticism of both the police and the council.

Follow the documents, and follow the money trail. Look what happened to Manchester’s legendary Hacienda club, which is now 130 apartments. Fabric was always going to close, drugs deaths notwithstanding. It’s not the police. It’s not drug laws. It’s likely a government that continues to roll back public services and institutions in an ever more calculating attempt to attract foreign money. And no amount of well-meaning drug law debate is going to change that.

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Some cunt will turn it in to flats and make a fortune.

Yeah, I bet. I’m hoping something like this with “out” some of the political corruption that takes place in our local councils.

Lets hope Fabric appeal.

Shit decision by shit people with shit for brains who dont give a shit about anything apart from their own shit agenda. Which is total shit.

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#shit

I know where the authorities are coming from, but I think it’s an Own Goal. When dance music was only played in night clubs, you could keep it contained. Alright, it is wack music, there is no denying that, but in a night club, when ur mashed on MDMA, it’s relatively harmless. What they’ve done now, is driven it onto the streets. I’ve seen it myself, people driving around, listening to their mix tapes, pretending they can tell the difference between one DJ and Another. It’s disgusting.

Hopefully this decision gets overturned, but I don’t hold out much hope.

Let’s face it, proper raves should be illegal and outdoors.

Therefore this can only be a good thing.

MOD EDIT :

Don’t “link” YouTube videos, JBoy. Lovely to see you back.

Confirmed apparently. Its being sold to property developers.

Can’t say I personally was too keen on Fabric as it cost a fortune and the staff there were utter wankers in my experience, but its certainly been a staple of London nightlife and I can imagine it’s a disappointment for a lot of people.

I was gutted when the London Soccer Dome was closed to be turned into flats so whilst this particular closure is no skin off my nose I do sympathise.

And how many of them were regulars? I suspect most went once or twice and had a good time while wankerd…just the usual jump on the band wagon and sign a petition for a “cool” clause

#nightclubs matter…?

always thought it overrated myself.

Rozzers close the Discotheque…and? One closes, one opens, young get fuelled up and fleeced… thems ever the ways. If its been open for 12 years, must be fricken stale/passed its shelf life by now anyway… would soon be the next Stringfellows :lou_is_a_flirt:

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A friend of mine once had a business meeting with Peter Stringfellow - he said it’s the only time he’s sat at a boardroom table that has a dancing pole in the middle of it, while the meeting was led by a bloke sat on his own throne.

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Assuming not the metaphore for

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Unfortunately you’re just showing yourself to be way out of touch. You’re talking about a club that’s as culturally significant as the National Gallery is to art. If it was just a normal club that fleeced youngsters do you really think it would be that big a story?

I suggest you read up about the ‘discotheque’ before talking such utter bollocks about it.

It was an incredibly popular club still, 17 years after opening, and in that time has had just under 7 million visitors, so not surprised.

Oh dear…someone is feeling a bit too grouchy to take these things with a bit of humour with which they were intended… but seriously, its a club,… ‘culturally significant as the national gallery is to art’? Now you are defo spouting complete bollocks :lou_lol:

Was the same when The Hacienda shut which was IMHO defo more culturally significant… but the legacy is what matters and defines its true cultural status, not the building or where it happened.

(PS…I do know about it Cherts, but still find the level of condemation about its closure a bit pathetic and concerning that the level of vexation seems greater than building a fucking wall in Calais to keep dark skinned people out… just saying like )

Make no mistake: if Fabric was a cocaine-plagued members club for the wealthy, it never would have been shut down

It’s finally happened: the last great stalwart of British clubbing has been eliminated. Fabric – one of the most established, reputable and well-organised nightclubs in Britain – has been permanently closed after numerous attempts from Islington Council and the police finally came good. It’s a decision that has baffled and outraged many. Anyone who has actually attended Fabric – and there’s a lot of us, 6 million in fact – knows that the care, time and energy put into ensuring the safety of the guests is incomparable to pretty much every other nightclub in the UK. It begs the question: if we can’t party at Fabric, where can we?

When people call Fabric a superclub it’s not merely a reference to the millions of people that attend each year. Fabric employed around 250 people. It was an iconic venue, occupying the same space as the Berghain in Berlin. It had international acclaim; it made people flock to London, and enhanced Britain’s reputation as a leader of this now-global clubbing industry that is worth billions of pounds, and which snaffles most top spots in the charts (NB Fabric cannot be held responsible for Pitbull).

It’s no surprise that even a 92-year-old Polish couple made a beeline for it. Like Cadbury’s or a local football team, the Fabric name held a place in many British hearts – it was a British institution that, between its record label and diverse range of clubnights, provided a one-of-a-kind, often formative experience for a huge portfolio of young people across the UK and abroad. While independent London clubs were being snuffed out for luxury flats, Fabric was an example of how it could be done.

But then, of course, there were the drugs. Looking through my photos from Fabric this morning, reliving some nostalgia to work through the outrage, I came across an old photo from 2006 - admittedly the last time I attended. In the photo, someone is wearing a D.A.R.E T-shirt – tees that were put out by a US charity that encouraged young people to “dare to resist drugs and violence”. Clubbers wore it as a piss-take but it’s a reminder of just how long moral panic around drugs has dogged dance music and underground culture.

But drugs don’t only exist within dance clubs, and you have to ask yourself why your average yuppie members club servicing coked-up blokes doesn’t enjoy the same kind of constant pursuit. Fabric even had its own in-house medical team, a team that had won praise from doctors, for being there where punters needed it. Then there’s the sad irony that documents have been released suggesting the cash-strapped council looking to sell its properties “fabricated” drug issues at Fabric. What a time to be alive.

But it’s just a nightclub! Who cares, right? Yet for many of us, the death of Fabric is a grave symbol, the last nail in the coffin of London nightlife, and another blow to British arts and culture as a whole – because remember, club culture is culture, proper culture that will be in history books, joining Warhol’s Studio 54 and Manchester’s Hacienda. Perhaps worse is the skin-crawling feeling that had Fabric been a playground for the rich and/or middle-aged, it would have shirked the long arm of the law.

So now what? There are genuinely barely a handful of places a young person, or an averagely paid person, can let loose in our nation’s capital city these days. The government’s hand at slowly turning London into a stale Switzerland-style playground for the rich has been effective. That’s not to say that Fabric was cheap – in fact, at £8 a drink (if you’re lucky) in Zone 1 London, whatever the downsides of ecstasy or sharing a gram of MDMA, it was certainly a cost-effective night out if you chose to indulge. Raving isn’t a right, but when freedoms and happiness are so closely bound to wealth it has to be questioned. And it won’t just be London – I hope the organisers of Warehouse Project are sleeping with one eye open.

Some good news: already motions to appeal the heinous decisions are in swing, and with the mayor pledging to help keep kids dancing, the battle might not be lost. Let’s hope the dancing is allowed to go on; the council might be richer without it, but London will be culturally so much poorer.

But it’s not just about Fabric, it’s about what it means. It means that any club in the country can now be closed down on a whim. It’s the demonisation of the clubbing culture. And it’s closing down the most popular and important club this country has.

Fabric is not just a club. It’s a creator of talent (see their outreach programs). It’s an educator. But most of all, it’s the only excellent club this country has. Yes MOS is fine, as is the Egg, Warehouse Project, XOYO etc. But they’re not Fabric.

This isn’t the fucking White House closing down. It’s the British equivalent of Space in Ibiza (which is also fucking closing - this is a really bad year for me personally).

Chersts, this action is nothing new… license removal has always been at a whim subject to local council decisions and who says what… its happened to clubs and pubs before and will continue to happen. But its not a fucking tragedy (over used word) it means you go somewhere else or do something else to enyoy yourself… its not your boat tipping over inpitch blackness in the med whilst fleeing war torn regions and as above, its not building a fucking wall to keep the darkies out…

Who said it is? Who have you seen comparing it to the above?

Originally posted by @Chertsey-Saint

It’s no surprise that even a 92-year-old Polish couple made a beeline for it. Like Cadbury’s or a local football team, the Fabric name held a place in many British hearts – it was a British institution that , between its record label and diverse range of clubnights, provided a one-of-a-kind, often formative experience for a huge portfolio of young people across the UK and abroad. While independent London clubs were being snuffed out for luxury flats, Fabric was an example of how it could be done.

Hmm, interesting, before you started this thread I’d never heard of the place, but then I’ve never really been into clubbing or dance music.

“Big box, little box, fish” or “the shelf stacker” never really did it for me.

Even the article’s author admits that the last time he went there was 2006!!

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