Under-threat Night and Day Café have cleaned up their act by staying quiet for seven nights after they were issued with licence warnings – but residents aren’t celebrating just yet.
The Northern Quarter venue has been facing closure after local residents complained of noise nuisance.
But despite audio levels hitting a low in the last week for the first time since January, the anonymous resident who has been leading the battle to beat the noise is not rejoicing.
“We don’t feel it’s a victory because it’s not about winning. It’s about a bar working within the law,” said the resident, who reiterated earlier claims that he did not wish to see the bar close its doors.
“Night and Day’s owners need to be a good neighbour and they’re not.”
Manchester City Council decided to review the iconic venue’s licence after receiving complaints from the resident as well as other neighbours from Tibb Street and Dale Street over the past eight years.
If the bar is found to regularly be flouting noise rules, conditions could be placed on their licence, such as imposing noise level settings.
But the Manchester venue, which has launched the careers of bands like Elbow, could also face losing their live music licence altogether – putting the bar’s future in doubt.
There have been false dawns in the past when the council witnessed the bar comply with their licence restrictions for two weeks in January, but they soon ‘reverted back’ according to the resident.
The Night and Day Cafe was slapped with a noise abatement notice in January and this sparked a petition to try and fight the notice, which almost 75,000 people signed.
On Friday and Saturday night, the resident insisted that, although the sounds of music at the property could be heard, the bass and vibrations that had made their life a misery were not audible.
And guitars and vocals could also not be identified in a marked improvement from Night and Day – but that will have to remain the case to avoid breaching licence rules and closure.
In a video recording the noise the resident and his partner had to endure, it is claimed that the venue left windows and inner doors open as the music continued into the early hours of the morning.
But the resident believes the venue has since rectified this in the last few days as decibel levels plummeted.
“That proves that the owners of the bar can do it. We noticed the difference,” the resident told MM.
“We hope it can stay like this but we don’t believe it will do. We don’t what it to close down and it is not going to get closed down.”
With Night and Day claiming to have worked on installing soundproofing measures, the disgruntled neighbour does not believe that this is the case and that funds have instead been diverted to investing in enlarging the bar’s operations.
The resident also revealed that the council had confirmed Night and Day’s plans to begin building an upstairs bar on the premises even with the uncertainty hanging over their current licence.
“Night and Day have spent a huge amount of money to try and fight it,” said the resident.
“They are not working with the council and they are fighting it because they believe they are not causing a nuisance. It’s just a pack of lies.”
The residents’ blog on the row, posted under the pseudonym complaint Manchester, has exploded in popularity with almost 1,000 hits from all over the world from as far afield as Australia and Iceland since it was set up earlier this week.
“It’s massive and I can’t believe how massive it’s got,” he said.
“We want the council to go into Night and Day and we want them to work with the council and set noise levels. If they have any more complaints in the future, they will know what the levels are.”
The review of the licence will include a 28-day period of public consultation, but only businesses and residents who live in the Northern Quarter area will be able to make representations.
Image courtesy of Duncan Hill, with thanks
