Chris C
Registered: May 2003
Posts: 53 - Threads: 18
Location: PLYMOUTH
|
Following on from a raid on 'Eyecon' at the Dance Academy here in Plymouth last weekend, here's what the loacl paper is reporting, for those that might be interested:
Steel shutters were going up at Plymouth's Dance Academy today after a court ordered it shut for three months following a police drug raid at the weekend.
Police told magistrates yesterday that the Union Street club was being used on a large scale for consumption and dealing of Class A drugs and that the owner, Manoch Bahmanzadeh, and management allowed it to go on.
The closure order is the first such application to be granted anywhere outside London.
Hundreds of ecstasy tablets - some found on bar staff - were seized by police when 140 officers raided the club in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The court heard drugs were found 'all over the club' and that a lot had been dropped on the floor by some of the 220 startled clubbers when police invaded the premises.
Dylan Sadler, senior lawyer for the city council's anti-social behaviour unit, who was making the closure application on behalf of police, described the club as 'a filling station for class A drugs'.
Det Insp David Huggett, based at Charles Cross, said the club had been the target of a covert police operation for five months and that undercover officers had been sent in on previous Saturday nights to 'test-purchase' drugs.
He said: "The club was being used for the sale and consumption of Class A drugs. The owner and the management team were wholly aware of the scale of the problem and were allowing it to go ahead.''
He said that during the weekend raid one member of staff had been found in possession of 100 ecstasy tablets; another had 60 tablets.
He said: "They were arrested and the staff member who had 100 tablets said in interview that people appeared to be 'off their heads' in the club.
"She said that management ignored it or took no notice of what was going on. She said no one had ever been searched for drugs in her presence.''
DI Huggett said undercover officers were already inside when the raid took place. "They were providing information that there was dealing in drugs going on and that people were openly consuming drugs," he said.
"They also reported there had been violence and that someone had been 'bottled' over the head.''
A sample of 300 tablets later sent to a police laboratory for testing had been found to be ecstasy.
He said: "Class A drugs were found in every area of the club.''
Mr Sadler said notice of the closure application had been served on the club's licensee, Justin Hayward, as required by law, but Mr Hayward had not turned up to contest the application.
Mr Bahmanzadeh had given assurances in the past about drugs in the club, he said, but 'the situation has deteriorated. Licensing conditions were being flaunted to the extent that people were opening buying and taking drugs and being expelled from the club, sometimes at 8am, while under the influence of drugs. To have staff involved in the supply of Class A drugs was at least anti-social behaviour.'
He said Mr Bahmanzadeh had business interests elsewhere in the city, as owner of both the Cooperage and the Phoenix.
Mr Sadler said: "We will now take steps to have his licence revoked. The police will say that he cannot be a bad licence-holder of one club and a good licence-holder of another.
"By the immediate closure, the police hope it sends out a very strong message to Plymouth licensees that they are taking a pro-active approach to this sort of situation.''
He also said that there would be an application served on Mr Bahmanzadeh to pay the £44,371 costs of the police operation at the weekend.
In granting the three- month closure application, magistrates said it would not prevent Mr Bahmanzadeh entering his private premises, situated above the club, via a separate entrance.
In another court hearing yesterday Detective Constable Mark Huxham successfully applied for the detention of £5,000 in cash which was seized by police during the Dance Academy raid in connection with alleged drug-dealing or money- laundering.
Manoch Bahmanzadeh has been released on bail until August 8 on suspicion of permitting his premises to be used for the sale and consumption of Class A drugs and money-laundering.
Eleven people were arrested for drug offences.
Three people have been charged with possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply and were due to appear before Plymouth magistrates this morning.
(The creator of Mohawk/Aztec/Piratewax Records  )
Report this post to a moderator |
IP: Logged
|
![[HarderFaster] - Work Hard, Play Harder!](/images/mainbanner_top1.gif)
10-05-2006 09:12 AM
