THE future of a controversial pub looks set to be secured at a licence hearing tomorrow (Wednesday) after police said no violent incidents had taken place there since it re-opened last month.
The White Lion pub, in Sun Street, Waltham Abbey, was dramatically shut down by Epping Forest District Council on Thursday November 5 after a string of horrific clashes, including a random gas attack by a man on customers, which led to two drinkers and two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) being injured.
But days later the authority agreed to allow the venue to start trading again for a trial period after its owners McMullen and Sons, a brewery firm, agreed to implement a string of changes, including sacking the pub's landlady Kim Johnson, reducing its opening hours and installing CCTV.
And now a panel of the council's licensing sub-committee will decide whether or not it can now reopen for good.
At the hearing, the pub owner's legal team is expected to argue that they have sufficiently turned things around at the venue, with no major incidents involving staff or drinkers within the past 21 days.
Inspector Craig Carrington, of Essex Police, said officers were satisfied that changes had been made.
He added: "We'll be putting forward our representations and working with McMullen's on their representations."
The pub's solicitors, Poppleston Allen, previously attacked the decision by the council to temporarily shut the venue down, claiming it was heavy-handed.
A letter to the authority's licensing department said: “we are of the view that the steps taken [at the council's licence hearing on November 5] were unnecessary and disproportionate, given the factual circumstances of the case and that more appropriate measures should have been considered.”
The hearing on November 5 heard how, under the pub's previous management, there had been 15 serious incidents at the nightspot in the space of 12 months, including a number of brawls, attacks on staff and a case in which a police radio was damaged as officers tried to intervene during one fight.
A spokesman for McMullen and Sons declined to comment, saying the company wanted to put the White Lion's controversial past behind it.
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