LONDON S Fabric, perhaps Britain s most famous nightclub, lost its licence last week. After the drugs-related deaths of two teenagers over the summer, police and local officials decided the club wasn t doing enough to keep people safe, despite it previously being praised as one of the most regulated spaces around. According to Islington Council s official statement justifying the decision, it was abundantly obviously that patrons in the club were on drugs and manifesting symptoms showing they were. This included sweating, glazed red eyes and staring into space.
Barring an unlikely reprieve, 250 people will have lost their jobs, fans of electronic dance music will have lost their Mecca, and we will all have lost yet another part of London to the relentless march of blandification. Fabric has been punished because people like to take drugs. Closing the place will just push more people into less well-regulated spaces, just as the decline of pubs is pushing problem drinking into invisible domestic places. As many people have pointed out, there are far worse-run places than Fabric that have a problem with drugs our prisons and the Houses of Parliament among them.
Emily Thornberry (pictured), the club s local MP, posted a statement ahead of the club s licensing review.
As a parent, my heart goes out to the family and friends of anyone who has lost loved ones at such a young age, she wrote.
But we must guard against the assumption that dangerous drug use would cease simply if we were to close a nightclub like Fabric. The closure comes at an awkward time for mayor Sadiq Khan, who has been talking up the importance of London s cultural sphere and night economy. The 24-hour Tube was meant to encourage London towards being a truly 24-hour city but Khan s search for a night tsar may attract less impressive candidates if all they have to oversee is the occasional late night kebab emporium.
The demise of Fabric sets a terrible precedent. If one of the best-run and resourced clubs can be deemed too suffused with drugs to continue, then what venue is safe? And, if no venue is safe, then what is the future of our cities, other than as silent, CCTV-laden dormitories and concrete-and-steel deposit boxes for the super-rich?
The age of the super-club emerged after the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 killed the rave scene. Thousands of young people meeting up in fields to listen to music which includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats was outlawed. The Act also criminalised a series of previously civil offences such as trespass, squatting and unauthorised camping.
The countryside duly saved, the consequent clamping down on clubs in the city is part of the same pattern. There s the moral panic on the part of the tabloids, spreading a fear of youth activity, the shutting down of venues and the increased privatisation of public space. Without wanting to get too psychogeographic about it, it feels like the space of the possible is shrinking, thus limiting the possibility for communal creation and change. What kind of cities do we want to have? The way we re heading, London could be another Singapore bland, over-regulated and a long, long way away from being free.
Five years from now, I wouldn t be surprised if Fabric will be like Manchester s Hacienda club, converted into luxury flats. Now the party s over, you can come home, ran that development s promotional material. But what if the party is over altogether?