Restaurant where customers are heard ‘screaming and yelping’ given licence to serve booze in garden

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Dr Colm Long, a neighbour to the restaurant, said at a Greenwich council meeting that he was the person most immediately affected by the “intrusive” noise of diners. The resident said that customers of the restaurant were often seated within one metre of his kitchen window.

He said: “It’s been a source of regular torment and distress to me, without sounding too emotive… I am regularly disturbed while I am in my home with all doors and windows closed and I have stopped using my rear outdoor area during the hours of operation of the premises because it is distressing to be out there and be unable to avoid hearing it.”

Licensing agent Darryl Crossman said at the meeting that absorbent material would be added to the walls of the garden to minimise the noise of customers.

Mr Crossman also said there were plans for a member of staff to constantly stay in the garden of the restaurant to monitor the noise.

He said: “It is effectively a restaurant, it’s not a nightclub. Obviously, people do talk, you can restrict people to a certain level by doing this, with the canopy as well, I think the noise suppression will be a lot greater.”

Ozzy Zinnureyin, owner of Lokanta, said at the meeting that several residents who had complained about the noise did not have any direct line of sight to the restaurant, and he disputed there had been screaming and yelping. The owner also said there was a shisha bar next door to the restaurant with a similar licence.

Mr Zinnureyin said: “They are equidistant to these [two] properties. There is no way of anybody categorically being able to say to us that the noise is generated from Lokanta and it’s not coming from them.”

He added: “We’ve been there for 54 years. We’re the oldest shopkeepers in Greenwich and we’re the longest-serving licensees in Greenwich. We’re being painted with this brush as if we’re rogues and we don’t care for our neighbours.”

Greenwich council announced on March 30 that the licensing sub-committee had approved the application for Lokanta to serve booze in its garden, stating it felt the premises would be well run.

Pictured top: Lokanta restaurant, as seen on Greenwich Church Street (Picture: Google Earth)