onionbagblog

With a huge heads up to the good @labourstockwell, here’s where we find out exactly who is responsible for pitching in with the bonkers 5am alcohol and live music licence for Kelly’s along the Clap’ham Road.

The mysterious CL 21 Speed Ltd, as listed on the Variation in Licence form, didn’t give much away. Likewise for the Southwark SE5 85X postcode. For more of a pointer then you need to look slightly closer to home and the A Toca Cafe, situated along Wandsworth Road, SW8. Mr. Antonio da Silva is listed at Companies House as the current owner, strangely under the business of ‘window cleaning.’

And so it would seem that the plan is to turn Kelly’s into a Porto cafe. I’d be quite supportive of this in principle - custard cream cakes, coffees and sea fish food. I fail to see however why a licence until 5am in the morning is required to provide such a service.

It is accepted that Sunny Stockwell is home to the largest Portuguese community outside of the mother country. We are an inclusive lot around here, working, resting and playing rather well together. I would like to continue to be able to rest at a reasonable hour.

But my #hyperlocal little patch of South London is not a Porto holiday resort. It is a residential area of South London, where locals needs to rest before heading out to work the next day.

Even the Porto enclave of South Lambeth Road doesn’t have any bar with a bonkers 5am licence. My fear is that once Little Porto closes at a respectable hour, the customers will simply stream down Dorset Road and continue to party around my #hyperlocal patch.

This really should be a straightforward common sense decision for the Licensing Committee to make. If the application is to proceed (which is unlikely) then the Committee needs to assess if the lifestyle of locals living nearby will be affected.

The @lambeth_council Licensing Committee is made up of political representation across all three parties. Party politics shouldn’t come into this.

@LambethLabour courted the Porto community ahead of May 6th. It is hoped that this same feeling of respect and understanding is applied to all living within Sunny Stockwell.

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