The Black Cap (Image: Wikipedia Commons)
London is still reeling from the shock closure of the Black Cap, the iconic Camden LGBTQ pub and cabaret venue, yesterday (April 13 2015).
It’s a heartbreaking turn of events whose impact is already being felt across London, provoking grief and anger that are unlikely to fade soon.
But what might actually happen next? Given the secrecy involved in the closure, the complexity of planning regulations and the refusal of the pub’s operator, Faucet Inn, to respond to enquiries, there are more questions than answers. But here’s the situation as I understand it so far.
All of the following comes with the proviso that I am not by any means an expert in council regulations or property law and it’s possible I’ve got the wrong end of the stick about some of the finer details. But I hope the gist is correct. Also, a lot of this is pretty dry stuff so brace yourself.
Faucet Inn has run the Black Cap for the past five years on behalf of a freeholder – the ultimate owner of the site – which according to council documentation is called Kicking Horse Ltd, which is registered in Jersey making it difficult to find out many details.
According to Faucet Inn’s statement yesterday, in December Kicking Horse Ltd began the process of selling the Black Cap to a new freeholder and exchanged contracts. As of yesterday, the sale had not in fact been finalised – the statement said it “will complete imminently” – but there is no apparent legal impediment to its completion.
Assuming it does go through, we don’t have any information on the identity of the new buyer. I’ve heard various rumours: that the new company has the same owners as the old company, so they are effectively selling it to themselves; that the new buyer is another brewery; that the site is earmarked for retail; that a neighbouring site or sites – perhaps even the whole block – has been bought as part of the same deal. I’ve seen no evidence for any of these myself. We just don’t know.
We do know that the new owner will face some restrictions on what they can do with the site. As Nigel Harris of Camden LGBT Forum observes in a post on the Forum’s website, this week has seen a shift in the law that means property owners can no longer change a pub or bar into retail space without council permission. So far the council hasn’t received any applications for such a change relating to the Black Cap site.
What’s more, last week Camden Council granted the Black Cap ACV status, which brings certain additional protections.
It means a property cannot be sold without informing the community and giving them six months to prepare a bid of their own at market rate – though the owner is under no obligation to accept such a bid.
ACV status also makes it harder for an owner to get permission to redevelop a property or change its use in a way that undermines the community value for which it has been recognised.
What does this mean for the Black Cap? There’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that if the sale of a property has been agreed before ACV status is granted, which is the case here, the rules about notifying the community of a sale don’t apply. So there’s no option for a six-month delay or a community bid here.
The good news is that the ACV rules regarding redevelopment and changes of use remain in force. They apply to the site for five years from the time they’re granted, regardless of who owns it.
This is important because in granting the Cap ACV status, the council explicitly recognised its iconic place in London’s queer history, the cultural value of its drag and cabaret performance, and its function as “a community centre for the local LGBT community in the absence of such a dedicated facility”.
Does this mean the new owners have to keep the Cap open? No. But as far as I can tell, it means they will face an uphill struggle to get council approval to do anything with the site that doesn’t fulfil those community functions.
And another bit of good news is that Camden Council are big supporters of the Black Cap. As well as granting it ACV status, they unanimously refused planning permission earlier this year to a proposal to redevelop the site.
The significant thing here is that the council rejected the plan specifically because they concluded it would destroy the Black Cap’s ability to function as a nightlife venue and LGBT community hub. They take those things seriously.
To reaffirm this support, Camden Council leader Sarah Hayward today accused Faucet Inn of “summarily ripping up half a century of history” and urged the company “to meet to discuss their plans and how we can ensure there is a future of this historic and important venue”.
None of this necessarily means the Black Cap will open its doors again as the venue we know and love – although that does remain a hypothetical option. But it suggests that some kind of queer community and performance facility has a good chance of remaining on its footprint.
The big unknown remains the identity of the new owner. Their intentions will have a huge effect on what happens next.
If it’s a case of the Black Cap building being sold on its own to a new buyer, then on the face of it they’ll struggle to convince the council to let them use it as anything other than an LGBT performance pub and community venue – or at least a space that facilitates those things.
So they’ll have to do that; or convince the council that they have another plan that will benefit the wider community in ways that outweigh the Cap’s venue to LGBT Londoners; or take a chance on leaving the site to stagnate until ACV runs out in 2020; or put it back on the market.
If they did put it back on the market, ACV rules would kick in and the community would get six months to come up with a bid for community ownership –though of course the price tag would be a huge challenge and the owners wouldn’t be obliged to accept such a bid anyway.
If the sale is part of a bigger project, involving neighbouring properties as well, the new owners would be under significant pressure to include some kind of LGBT community and performance facilities within their project plan, whatever it might be.
A useful next step would probably be for those who love the Black Cap to form a group to establish solidarity and plan ways to keep its flame alive.
This post was updated to reflect the fact that the Kicking Horse Ltd that previously owned the Black Cap’s freehold is a company registered in Jersey, apparently unrelated to another company of the same name registered in Buckinghamshire.
