Private club going public as Covent Garden gets a new cocktail bar

By Ben Lynch, Local Democracy Reporter

A former Covent Garden private members club will become a new cocktail bar after a planning application was approved.

The premises on Mercer Street, in Seven Dials, will also serve food after Westminster City council members green-lit the application at a planning meeting Tuesday night.

Currently sitting empty, the premises was previously run as the Crazy Bear Clubhouse. The approved application means it will be limited to 120 customers at a time, with operating hours of between 3pm and 1am Monday to Friday, 12pm and 1am Saturday, and 12pm and 12.30am on Sundays, bank holidays and public holidays.

Five objections were received by residents or owners prior to the meeting plus one from the Covent Garden Community Association. The association warned the building is in a ‘densely residential area’, and that ‘the area quietens down at night, every sound peak echoes, causing disturbance’.

It added it would withdraw its objection if conditions, including limiting capacity at 78 customers, were to be enforced. No objectors, including from the association, were at Tuesday’s planning sub-committee meeting.

Andrew Taylor, director at the applicant B&T Seven Dials, said the building has been empty since 2022 and prior to that it was closed due to Covid. He said a number of amendments were made to the plans following engagement with residents, including soundproofing, and that he and his partner will live in one of the flats above the building.

Mr Taylor told the sub-committee: “The proposal puts forward a vacant building being brought back into use with a successful operator that already runs five venues across the country with over 20 years of direct operational experience, while also protecting the residents offered in the conditions both by the premises licence and also the conditions proposed by the planning report.”

Conservative councillor Barbara Arzymanow asked officers about the potential impacts of equipment installed as part of the works on nearby residents, though members had limited queries following Mr Taylor’s representation.

The application was unanimously approved, with a number of conditions attached, including the maintenance of a comprehensive CCTV system and no admittance to the premises after midnight.

Longmartin Properties and B&T Seven Dials had already secured a premises licence to sell alcohol on the site.

Pictured top: 15-17 Mercer Street in Covent Garden (Picture: LDRS)