Hornsey pub rep walks out of meeting amid claim over 'shocking' number of incidents

Haringey Council and the Met Police want North Eight’s licence revoked but councillors have yet to decide after hours of debate, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A Hornsey pub could lose its premises licence after Haringey Council and the Metropolitan Police called the amount of incidents at the site “shocking”.

The council has called for the premises licence for North Eight, formerly Hornsey Tavern, to be reviewed after nearly 46 call outs were made between May 2024 and July 2025 with crimes, including underage drinking and customers fighting.

Last month, Haringey’s sub-licensing committee held a review which was adjourned due to licensing consultant, David Dadds, acting on behalf of North Eight, saying a number of the calls made to the Metropolitan Police had resulted in “no crime” and were “malicious”.

At the meeting on Tuesday (5th) David again asked for an adjournment as he said he had not been given enough time to investigate “over five hundred pages of documents” about the call outs, given to him by the police.

In response, committee chair Lester Buxton said the committee would take into account the “limited opportunity for rebuttal evidence by the licence holder” but rejected the request for adjournment.

David then withdrew from the meeting on the basis the hearing was “not fair”.

James Rankin, a licensing barrister, representing the police, said since the adjournment in July the premises had “become worse”.

He said that between 4th July and 30th July there were 16 calls made across nine separate dates and for eight of those dates the reason was “incidents of violence”. James added the calls were made by residents, the alarm company, bar staff and the security at the premises.

He added the police took exception to the “serious allegations” made towards PC Carey Denham at the hearing in July, referring to the arguments David made that PC Denham had misled the committee.

At this week’s hearing, PC Denham said there were a “substantial” amount of times when bar staff and security expressed concern “a big group” of between 30 and 60 people had “got out of hand”.

Labour committee member Adam Small said the licence holder, James Kearns, had “repeatedly and egregiously” failed to uphold the ”most basic requirements set out in the licensing act”.

He said: “We are facing a sustained pattern of serious failings that have caused repeated and serious distress and fear to Hornsey residents and I believe have undermined all four licensing objectives.”

Council noise and nuisance officer Craig Bellringer confirmed the premises had received an abatement notice and two fixed penalty notices due to noise being “excessive”.

In response to questions on whether the premises still caused a noise nuisance Craig said that since June there had been four or five noise complaints and that out of the public houses in Haringey this was “one of the worst ones” in terms of complaints the team received.

Craig, Cllr Small and the police all advised revocation of the licence entirely, as opposed to curtailment, in light of the arguments made at both hearings.

The committee closed the meeting following a nearly two-hour discussion to make a decision which will be published in five working days.

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