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| Hampstead ‘a genteel retirement
home ruled by pensioners’ mafia’ |
Wells Tavern regulars Susie Green and Matthew Power, who favour
longer pub hours |
HAMPSTEAD is becoming a genteel retirement home run by a pensioners’
mafia, according to a disgruntled member of the Heath and Hampstead
Society.
Susie Green, a writer from Willow Road, Hampstead, says the decision
by the conservation group to object to applications by bars and
pubs to stay open longer is destroying the character of the area
– and she has ripped up her membership card in disgust.
Last week, Town Hall licensing chiefs turned down an application
by the Wells Tavern in Wells Road – Ms Green’s local –
to stay open until midnight seven days a week following a campaign
by residents and the society.
Now Ms Green has resigned her three-year membership of the society
– one of the country’s oldest conservation groups –
because she feels it represents the views of a small clique.
She said: “I am fed up with the hysterical objections lodged,
in particular by the Heath and Hampstead Society, to any attempt
by a bar to stay open longer.
“If I go to the cinema why shouldn’t I be able to have
a drink there afterwards? I don’t want to have to go to Soho
every time I want to go out after 10. I want to walk up the road
and meet my friends.”
She added: “How I live is being dictated by a mafia of old
age pensioners and others who wish Hampstead to have the air of
a genteel retirement home. If they wish to live in an area with
no bars why not move to Hampstead Garden Suburb?”
Matthew Power, a friend of Ms Green who also drinks at the Wells
Tavern, said that Hampstead was becoming an increasingly sterile
place.
He said: “In the last few years we have seen the Bird in the
Hand close down, followed by the King of Bohemia and the Horse and
Groom. All these places provided somewhere for local people to go
and contributed to the original village atmosphere of Hampstead.
“There is now a stifling of anything different. A certain sort
of sterility is creeping in and driving people away from the area.”
But Tony Hillier, chairman of the Heath and Hampstead Society said:
“It is a misconception that we oppose every application for
a late license. We only oppose those that our members are concerned
about. The ‘mafia’ are hard working people who want to
get up and go to work in the morning, having had a good night’s
sleep.”
A spokesman for the Wells Tavern said the pub’s bosses were
now considering their next move. |
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