Fabwick applies for late-night license despite objections from council

Council officers say Fabwick in Hackney Wick is already operating as a late-night bar in breach of their current license as a restaurant.

Fabwick, a restaurant in Hackney Wick, has applied for a late-night bar licence – despite being accused by Tower Hamlets Council of breaching its existing licensing conditions.

Fabwick in Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, already has a licence to operate as a restaurant, but owner Kenan Balli says a new licence would ‘better reflect the way Fabwick operates’.

In his application to the council, he said he wants to ‘provide a safe, relaxed and welcoming neighbourhood bar and restaurant (with function room) offering live music, regulated entertainment, late-night refreshments, performances of plays and dance and sale of alcohol’.

If approved, Fabwick would be allowed to sell alcohol from 9am until midnight, Sunday-Tuesday; from 9am-1am Wednesday-Thursday; and from 9am-2am on Fridays and Saturdays.

But council officers said the venue was too close to new housing developments, and that Fabwick had effectively already been operating as a bar in breach of its current licence conditions.

Cases for and against the new licence were put to councillors at a licensing subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, 1 July.

Environmental protection officer Honour O’Leary told the committee he had ‘strong concerns over public nuisance, especially given the residential character of the surrounding area’.

O’Leary said noise impact assessments provided with Fabwick’s application had ‘overlooked’ new residential developments such as nearby Schwartz Wharf.

He said that another new development under construction on White Post Lane ‘will include bedrooms directly facing the premises, yet no reference or impact analysis has been made in the applicant’s document.’

He added: ‘The omission is highly significant as the area is becoming increasingly residential under the Hackney Wick masterplan.’

Principal licensing officer Kathy Driver told councillors that Fabwick’s current licence only allows it to serve alcohol with food to customers seated at tables, meaning ‘it should really have operated as a restaurant’.

But she said that police and council licensing officers had found Fabwick ‘effectively operating as a bar’ on ‘a number of visits’ including on 20th December 2024 and 2nd May this year.

Driver said: ‘Everyone was standing up drinking, it wasn’t a tables and chairs service. There were people outside, there was not a designated smoking area, there were people standing and drinking inside.’

She added that she didn’t ‘have the confidence’ that Fabwick would abide by the conditions of the new licence if it was granted.

Balli’s lawyer Stephanie Hayden acknowledged that Fabwick had breached its licensing conditions in 2024 – though she said it denied having done so on 20 May.

She said Balli and his staff disputed a licensing officer’s account of their visit on 20 May, and that the council had not proved the breaches had taken place.

Hayden said Balli had ‘worked to ensure those breaches had not actually been repeated’ and had ‘numerous meetings with the police’.

She noted that the Metropolitan Police had withdrawn its objection to Fabwick’s application for a new licence, which she said should be considered ‘very, very critical in assessing whether my client can actually follow the licensing conditions going forward’.

Hayden said that Balli wants to run Fabwick as a ‘community bar’ and that a new licence would allow him ‘to come into compliance’.

She said: ‘This is not an application for a nightclub – it is an application for a community facility in an area which has numerous leisure outlets within the Queens Yard area.

‘There’s nothing peculiar about this proposal, there’s nothing that would take this proposal out of the character of the area.’

Councillors on the subcommittee have until Tuesday (8 July) to publish their decision.

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