Zanzibar Xmas Newsletter

[Lee Jasper]

Club Zanzibar Newsletter Hand Delivered to Local Neighbourhood

Dear Neighbour

We at Club Zanzibar wish you all a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year as we approach the festive season.
And what a New Year it will be for Club Zanzibar, where we will be making many changes to Club policy that includes changing our name and re-branding in 2015.

Changes are coming.

We thought we’d let you know about these changes in advance. First though, we wanted to thank those local people, who have been in touch with us recently, suggesting ever more creative ways in which the Club can play a full part in local community. As a result we have joined the Sydenham Assembly and recently spoke at their recent meeting.

Since September the Club has held two local consultations responding to the issues and expressed concerns of some of our nearest neighbours. The later meeting was attended by our local Councillor Chris Best and Lewisham Police Service. We have listened to local concerns and have made some major decisions as a result.

Late night opening.

Firstly, the Club intends to dramatically reduce the number of late night licence opening applications we make over the course of a year. The exceptions will be those in line with current industry seasonal periods, such as Public Bank Holiday’s, Christmas and New Year and significant cultural occasions.

This will significantly reduce the extent to which noisy dispersal from the Club remains a real issue. This year for example will be applying for a late licence for Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Years Eve.

Change the music, change the customer profile.

Secondly, we have made a significant change to the clubs music policy. Moving from youth music events to an older more mature audience will bring significant benefits.

This important change can be illustrated in using a simple analogy. In short, it’s the difference between a punk rock and a classical music event. Our new promotions at the Club, will targeted this more mature, more responsible demographic audience. Older people tend to be more responsible, the leave the club in a dispersed manner, not in groups, the majority of whom, tend to leave before closing time.

Going Home Quietly.

We have in place a late night Control and Dispersal Policy , Part of our improved efforts, post 2am we will broadcast constant stream of recorded announcements, played over music, repeating the messages of respecting neighbours and the local environment.

We have also taken the decision that we will lower the music level, below the legal limit required by installing a sound limiter.

In addition we will also close our bar a full half an hour before our legal closing time, to encourage people to leave the club earlier.

We have placed noise barriers at the entrance of the club reducing to noise from those queuing up to enter and smokers. In relation to the immediate period after closing we have in place a local stewarding strategy that removes flyers from cars and ensure people leave the club quietly. The significant change in the weather will mean people will want to get into their cars and away quickly, unlike the summer months.

We are opening more days, less nights.

As part of our overall investment in the venue we are developing the club as a Community Hub by day for conferences, seminars and community events. Just recently held, a hugely successful internationalconference,‘Elbow Out Ebola’ at the Club with the Mayor of Lewisham and High Commissioners of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Cuba.

The conference explored the myths around Ebola and how people can help in responding to what is a major global medical crisis.

We will be announcing more events like these in the New Year with both a local and international flavour.

Club nights, live music and theatre.

To facilitate this change of use, the Club owner has now made a significant investment in transforming the club in to a live theatre space and live music venue. This represents an informed and significant change in our business model that moves away from the reliance on 6am closures. We are also managing our own promotions rather than simply renting the club out to promoters. This provides the Club with much more control over the type of audience that attends our events.

If you would value an informal chat about what we are planning would love to take you for a coffee and show you round the refurbished club.

You can email the club directly at:clubzanzibarsydenham@yahoo.co.uk and our hotline numbers should any issues arise during our three late night openings are;

Terry: 07506-115-145.
Lee: 07508-763-223
Fred: 07508-763-136

If you, or a group of people you know, are seeking to venue space to engage in any aspect of community development or raise social concerns then please do get in touch.

Conclusion.

These are significant and helpful changes that will see our venue renamed and rebranded as we emerge as a Club with a conscience. We aspire to be an exemplary business in the local community that not only provides employment and aids the local economy of Sydenham, but makes a significant civic contribution, in line with our strategic business commitment to corporate social responsibility.

We hope you will be pleased with our plans and during the spring of next year we intend to announce new initiatives that will see the venue develop into a significant community hub.

We’d love you to be a part of our continued development, expansion and successes.

Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year.

Club Zanibar.
December 2014

[Chris Best]

Full marks to Zanzibar for putting out the Newsletter and letting the community know about the change in approach.

In terms of the application for a late night licence I understand that Christmas Day and Boxing Day have in effect been refused. There is a Licensing Committee tomorrow evening, Tuesday, 16th December at 7.15 pm to consider the application for New Year's Day from 02:00 to 04:30 for the
Supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises
Regulated entertainment
The provision of late night refreshment

Application - http://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/ ... cation.pdf

On the 01st Jan 2015 from lam until 5am, the event is an Oldies NYE Party featuring various Dj’s. These dj’s will be playing a variety of tunes both new and old classics. This event is aimed at the 30+ a more mature crowd. Food & alcohol will be available until 4:30am. In response to previous concerns we have imposed a number of extra conditions.
1. No admission of Patrons into the venue after 4:00pm this will be printed on all printed advertising for the event.
2. With regards to patrons walking back their cars throughout the night causing a disturbance we have adopted a no re-admission policy throughout the night. Again this is printed on the T&C on the back of the admission ticket and on all printed material.
3. Regarding groups of patrons outside of Zanzibar causing noise, we are going to employ 1 S.LA. badged employee
with the sole responsibiity of approaching any groups of people that may congregate, may I however add, this audience being an older audience it is highly unlikely there will be groups of people congregating but better to be prepared.
4. Littering & flyers - we have a policy of the traffic stewards collect all flyers off all parked cars before finishing their shift.
4. Regards to noise created from patrons talking in the smoking area - We now have installed a set of removable 8ft
boards along our wall to reflect back any din that is created in the smoking area. With these measures in place we as an event organiser and venue feel extremely positive that this event can be staged and run without disturbing any neighbours.

Capacity of 499

There is an objection - It is the view of the Public Health and Nuisance Team that there is a significant increased risk to the prevention of public nuisance licensing objective by granting this notice.
1. The Public Health and Nuisance Team have received a number of complaints from different residents in relation to the noise associated to this premises
2. The request for the provision of regulated entertainment until 04:30 is unsuitable for a residential area.

I will let residents know the outcome of the Committee meeting but it is a public meeting at the Town Hall if anyone wishes to attend.

[P1971]

Hi Lee

Thanks for posting the newsletter, I like the sound of the changes you are making.

Myself (Sugar Mountain) and Chris from Sugahill have had a brief chat about having to move The Funk Committee night to a bigger local venue as it grows and we were wondering about your place. Our first one at The Hill was full to capacity on the night.

Have a look at the thread "THE FUNK COMMITTEE PRESENTS A NIGHT OF PURE HEAVEN" page 2 on here to get an idea of what we done.

The majority of the crowd were aged 30-50 with a few younger people that came along as they enjoyed that type of music. It would be great if we could hook up with you for a chat about hosting a night in the New Year as most were local parents and loved the fact that they could go out locally and not worry about getting home if need be for the kids if they took Ill or an emergency arose within 5/10 mins.

I just tried to call you but you were busy so my work email is sugarmountain.info@gmail.com I'd appreciate it if you could get in touch and I can also add Chris to the convo via his private email.

Many Thanks and Merry Christmas

Pauline

[susan]

OH NO!!

After the miserable life we locals have had to endure over the past six months or so, the Zanzibar have applied to be allowed to serve alcohol from 1 am to 4 am on New Years Eve.

It is hard to believe that the letter printed above eminates from the same gentleman who dismissed/disputed greivances aired by sleep-deprived locals at the recent(ish) meeting at the Grove Centre. (They neither acknowledged the extent of the problem, nor apologised, then, and they have not done so now. I may at least have been more sympathetic to their plans for the coming year if they had done so. What a wasted opportunity).

Their latest application, (kindly posted by Cllr C Best) has stated that the maximum number of people allowed to attend will be 499 - what, 499??.

Yours sincerely

Deja vu/Sense of foreboding/Back to square one of Kirkdale.

P.S. HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE, JOY, GOOD HEALTH AND HAPPINESS FOR 2015

[Chris Best]

Just to confirm that the Licensing Committee agreed a Temporary Event Notice for the following activities to take place

From 02:00 to 04:30 on 1st January 2015 in Hall 1 and Hall 2
Supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises
Regulated entertainment
The provision of late night refreshment

I have been advised by officers that a late application for a TEN was received for 25 - 27 December and because an objection was received from Environmental Enforcement, a Counter Notice was issued straight away and there is no appeal.

The view of the Committee is that Zanzibar have put measures in place to address the previous problems and that this New Years Eve is a good time to see if all the changes have the desired outcome of no noise nusiance and public disturbance. Residents have the hot line numbers in advance of New Years Eve for Fred (the new owner from the end of May),Terry (the operations manager) and Lee who is working on behalf of Zanzibar to improve the community engagement. Neighbours need to be ready to keep a log of any distrubance and also any issues with parking and traffic management. This is very much a test to see if the change of music policy and move to a more mature customer works for the neighbours of the club. There is a limit on the number of TENS that can be applied for beyond the current licence of 2am.

[Lee Jasper]

We are delighted that we have been given an opportunity to demonstrate the changes we introduced at Club Zanzibar this New Years Eve.

Just to reiterate we welcome residents calling the management team direct on New Years Eve if they have any concerns. We will be filming all throughout the night, particularly where any incidents may arise, to ensure that all the stewards are responding to any request for help or complaints in both a professional and timely manner.

Terry: 07506-115-145.
Lee 07508-763-223
Fred: 07508-763-136

We are confident in our ability to vastly reduce the levels of anti social behaviour and noise and we have a rapid response team to quickly deal with any incidents.

We wish all a very happy new year and we look forward to continuing to develop relationships with, local resident, local community organisations, businesses and the wider community.

[The Commander]

Not a great fan of yours Lee Jasper after your time at the GLA. But you write a good post and I hope that the Zanzibar works out for all concerned and you can live up to the huge expectations otherwise you relationship with the local community will be in tatters. Perhaps, whilst you are posting on this forum you could tell us what your thoughts are with regard to members of the BME community who are also members of the LGBT community with regard to your friends over at KICC. You are after all a champion of anti discriminatory policies and equality in employment practices.

PS Whilst you are at it - please could you explain the £10 million received by KICC for their site at Waterden Road which didn't have planning permission for the activities they were carrying out there. Were you involved in securing the CPO monies over and above what the site was actually worth ? Please do tell.

[Vintage Auntie]

Nice one Commander! happy New Year

[The Commander]

And a happy New Year to you too Vintage Auntie.Looking forward to being enlightened by Lee Jasper. Hope Lewisham has the Licensing team monitoring the event! Sure they will be pulling all the stops out just like they are with the Greyhound! Ha Ha - weak and impotent.

[The Commander]

Very sorry Chris Best but it is Lewisham as Licensing Authority having granted the licence, against overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that should be monitoring the event and keeping a log of any issues!! If you want a test, monitor it yourselves!!! "Neighbours need to be ready to keep a log of any distrubance and also any issues with parking and traffic management. This is very much a test to see if the change of music policy and move to a more mature customer works for the neighbours of the club."

[Eagle]

It does beggar belief that after all the rowdy actions over many many months they have been allowed another go.

When will it not sink in that the residents do not want these events.

Commander
Seems The KICC is a clerical organisation and people of God. Puzzled what they could possibly be doing wrong.

[SquashedCommuter]

Neighbours need to be ready to keep a log of any distrubance and also any issues with parking and traffic management.

After all the time and trouble residents have expended over the year to stop these unwanted night-time disturbances in their residential area, this does not sound like the happiest way for them to start 2015. I hope that if the residents decide to spend their time otherwise or flee elsewhere, the lack of logs handed in does not automatically get taken as a licence for Zanzibar to continue these disturbances.

...Lee who is working on behalf of Zanzibar to improve the community engagement.

Interesting to use the word "engagement" as I expect the residents preference would be to eliminate any engagement with Zanzibar.

The newsletter looks like a typical business response after applying Mendelow's matrix.



The residents clearly have low power and high interest so the business approach is "Keep informed" with newsletters which also serves to pacify those who can do something about it (e.g. the council).

"These stakeholders are interested in the strategy but lack the power to do anything. Management needs to convince opponents to the strategy that the plans are justified; otherwise they will try to gain power by joining with parties in boxes C and D."

[Eagle]

Sq

Your explanation very helpful. However I am totally confused where democracy has gone when the locals are so disadvantaged by this nocturnal paradise,.


Good Old Walter Cobb will be turning in his grave. The area being used used to be a rather select coffee and tea emporium . Only music ever played would be gently on a piano.

LBL seem to consider the opinions of outsiders much more important than the locals . Strange but true.

[Lee Jasper]

Happy New Year to All !

We are delighted to report that our New Years Event 2015, went ahead without a single complaint to the Zanzibar management team, Lewisham Council or Lewisham Police Service. This was a s a result of the exemplary efforts of the new club management in changing the customer demographic, the introduction of a dispersal policy and noise reduction measures.

We are confident, that with these new measures in place, we can open late without too much disruption to our immediate neighbours. Whilst we are pleased with this success, we not complacent and will continue to ensure these important arrangements are under constant review.

We are currently applying for additional Temporary Events Notice's for the weekends of the 30th/31st January and 13th/14th February 2015 for the Valentines Day weekend.

We are fully committed to keeping the local community fully informed by way of newsletters and public meetings. We are developing a range of new day time services targeting supporting young people in the borough and we will be making announcements about this shortly.

We are currently developing our own local mailing list and if you would like to ensure you receive our newsletters and meeting updates, then please email me on lee-jasper@live.com

[Nigel]

Lee
it's perhaps prophetic that you didn't use the word "parking" in your christmas newsletter - that was certainly what went badly wrong on your first event of 2015 . Not to generalise but I suspect the patrons of a funeral wake are a tad more orderly than your usual clientele so not optimistic about how Zanzibar will handle your next events.
There was nothing exemplary about the idiots double parking , stopping buses , parking on pavements and crossings last week and I did not see anyone from the club trying to do anything about .

Its disappointing that there has been no response from Zanzibar though I am sure there will be a vigorous denial at the next public meeting in response to the inevitable disturbance your venue will cause people .

A very good evening
Nigel

[Lee Jasper]

From all at Zanzibar now Maestro's Arts and Education Centre, we would like to offer a formal and sincere apology to all local residents, who were unfortunately affected by a private event, held at the club on the 15th of January 2015.

The event however has to be seen in context of what happened on the night and not what people assume to have occurred, without having spoken to anyone at club . This was a Caribbean funeral wake (Nine Night), that in many respects is much like an Irish wake. We were initially advised that the expected attendance would be between 600 - 700 people. We organised our stewarding on that basis of this maximum attendance and were therefore understaffed and largely unprepared for the 700-800 additional customers that had to be turned away on the night.

This is in total contrast to our recent efforts, for example on New Years Eve, where no complaints were received. On this occasion, we were caught of guard and were unprepared for such a large crowd. Nevertheless, the management is completely clear that what happened on this evening was not acceptable.

We have now reviewed and amended our hire conditions advising those that wish to hire the venue that there will now be a financial penalty if numbers exceed their initial estimates. In addition we have now contracted a local group of stewards, who can be called upon at short notice to supplement existing stewarding arrangements at short notice.

We have been previously instructed by Lewisham Council Licensing Committee, that we can no longer set out parking cones or parking restrictive barriers on the public highway. This had been instituted by the previous management , after local consultation and had the agreement of the Council and Lewisham Police. They're view now having changed we are unable to prevent illegal parking.

We fought hard to retain this option but were left with no choice but to remove both barriers and cones.

This new ruling clearly exacerbated the local parking problems and left our stewards with very little control on where people parked on the night itself. In the light of this we are also exploring other alternatives with Lewisham Council as suggested here, such as the provision of late night parking wardens, tow trucks to enforce last night parking restrictions.

Quite literally we were taken by surprise by this event and are now ensuring we review and put in place contingency measures to ensure the high standards achieved on New Year’s Eve are maintained as a matter of course.

I would remind some posters, that this is but one of the our many, many, event nights, that has been in anyway problematic and to suggest on the basis of this isolated incident, that the Club has failed on its commitments to deliver the promises it made, we feel is unfair.

Further, whilst we have initiated radical change and have already delivered a qualitative improvement to our immediate neighbours, its important that all recognise and accept, that this a process of improvement and in the business of handling both people and events, it is inevitable, from time to time, that issues and concerns will inevitably arise.

On the call for our licence to be removed or be closed down. There has been a club in our venue for over 20 years. Calling for the club to be closed down as some have done here hints at broader agenda than simply seeking to positively engage and resolve problems.

We will continue to strive to minimise the effect of these unintended consequences and continue to learn from these incidents and improve on our long term performance as a result.

Once again we offer you our apologies and reiterate our commitment to positive and responsive dialogue with our neighbours.

[Joanne]

Lee,

This is not a subject which I’d normally post on. However like another poster, I also happened to be out jogging on the evening of this wake. It was chaos. There was a sense of things being out of control. If this is what the local residents have needed to endure then it is alarming. What I witnessed, amounted to anti-social behaviour.

You mention that you planned for 600 – 700 attending. This sounds a huge number anyway. But you got over double!
I’ve not visited Zanzibar, out of interest what is the internal sq foot inside? What is your agreed number capacity with insurance, public liability?

You mention that you’ve changed your name from Zanzibar to Maestro's Arts and Education Centre.

At quick glance the only information I’ve found about the business, apart from the reviews is to visit your Face book page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zanzibar/153557328016271

Where there is a web site shown too: http://www.zanzibarnightclub.co.uk/

The web site doesn’t appear to be in operation?

You wouldn’t normally associate an Arts & Education Centre with a nightclub.

My apologies if you’ve explained this already. What is this business? What’s it do exactly?

[Lee Jasper]

Lee,

This is not a subject which I’d normally post on. However like another poster, I also happened to be out jogging on the evening of this wake. It was chaos. There was a sense of things being out of control. If this is what the local residents have needed to endure then it is alarming. What I witnessed, amounted to anti-social behaviour.

You mention that you planned for 600 – 700 attending. This sounds a huge number anyway. But you got over double!
I’ve not visited Zanzibar, out of interest what is the internal sq foot inside? What is your agreed number capacity with insurance, public liability?

You mention that you’ve changed your name from Zanzibar to Maestro's Arts and Education Centre.

At quick glance the only information I’ve found about the business, apart from the reviews is to visit your Face book page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zanzibar/153557328016271

Where there is a web site shown too: http://www.zanzibarnightclub.co.uk/

The web site doesn’t appear to be in operation?

You wouldn’t normally associate an Arts & Education Centre with a nightclub.

My apologies if you’ve explained this already. What is this business? What’s it do exactly?

Dear Joanne thanks for the inquiry some of which is set out in the Xmas newsletter post above . We are currently transitioning from the old company to the new so bear with us. We will be launching the new brand later in the new year. This is the first major incident since the new owners took over and we have explained the circumstances of how this happened in the above post. We are licensed to a capacity of 799, I hope that helps and we will be posting more updates shortly about a range of new daytime events so stay tuned

[mosy]

@ Lee Jasper

Reading your explanatory post (time-stamped 14.58 today), I read that you're now not allowed to use cones etc to denote parking restrictions, yet were (or former owners were). Could I ask the reasons given by the council for this change of heart?

I can speculate in my head why they (Council) might or might not allow private street cones etc in the first place, but if they were allowed, why "Yes" (then) and now "No"? - What changed? How does the council expect you to control guests' parking if tying your hands?

[Lee Jasper]

@ Lee Jasper

Reading your explanatory post (time-stamped 14.58 today), I read that you're now not allowed to use cones etc to denote parking restrictions, yet were (or former owners were). Could I ask the reasons given by the council for this change of heart?

I can speculate in my head why they (Council) might or might not allow private street cones etc in the first place, but if they were allowed, why "Yes" (then) and now "No"? - What changed? How does the council expect you to control guests' parking if tying your hands?

I have no idea why the Council changed their view although the stated reason, they gave us was that they believed it to be illegal. Part of the problem we are experiencing with the Council is this 'moving goal post' scenario. Nevertheless to be fair they're position is objectively correct and we will need to work with them to find lawful solutions.