Nightclub owner tells LBC he is legally challenging 'nonsensical' 10pm curfew

5 October 2020, 12:05

'It makes absolutely no sense' - Club owner unhappy at 10pm curfew

The government's 10pm hospitality curfew "makes absolutely no sense", the owner of a well-known London nightclub has told LBC as he prepares to launch a legal challenge against it.

Jeremy Joseph, the owner of Soho's G-A-Y nightclub, is seeking a judicial review to overturn the 10pm curfew introduced last month by Boris Johnson.

The curfew, which "does not work" according to Mr Joseph, has come just over a couple of months after pubs and restaurants began to reopen as the government sought to relax national lockdown rules.

Mr Joseph told Nick Ferrari: "Over the last six months, since lockdown started, we've been put under certain rules and regulations and things that we have to do to keep our customers safe...But we're being given no facts or figures on why these are being put into place."

He added: "The 10pm curfew, to us, does not work. It's killing off the hospitality industry. And not only that, there's no proof [it works].

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"We are asked to make everybody safe when they come into the venue. We are doing table service, I've got screens in between every table [and] masks when you go into the venue.

"We are doing everything to make our venues safe, but then we're being asked to kick everybody out at the same time at an earlier time onto the streets and making them unsafe."

Mr Joseph highlighted an occasion when people had to leave a venue of his at 10pm while it was raining outside and therefore were huddling together as they all took to the same place for shelter.

"It's completely unsafe. It makes absolutely no sense," he added before saying that the government has "no idea" and isn't "talking to anybody in hospitality".

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Mr Joseph, who employs 160 people, also told LBC of the strain he had been put under as an employer due to the curfew.

He said: "Furlough ends in three weeks time. We have no idea how we're going to support our staff. Their hours are reduced.

"We've got a responsibility to our customers to keep them safe, to keep our staff employed. But why is the government not taking the same responsibility?"