London venue Canavan’s needs your help

The Peckham pool hall-cum-nightclub has come under threat due to the venue’s previous owners failure to change the space’s use

Another week, another London venue under threat. Peckham venue Canavan have said, in a new interview with THUMP that they need the help of the club’s previous owners and patrons in order to keep the venue open. The club’s owner Ciaran Canavan has said that the club is potentially under threat as the local council have told him that previous owners did not apply for a change of space from a snooker hall to a pool club and dance venue.

Canavan has however urged people to lobby the local council so that he can prove that the space has been used as a pool club and late night venue for more than ten years. This would allow him to fight the council’s decision as special dispensation is given to venues used for a certain purpose for over ten years. Read Canavan’s full statement below.

“If you owned Churchill’s or JFK’s or any of the other names this place has as a late night venue, or if you’ve ever been here as a late night venue, let the council know. They already do, though—at one point it was a 24hr venue—and they were fine with it. It’s only because it’s now a popular place and the people moving to Rye Lane now don’t like noise or kids on the street. We’re as quiet as we can be, but obviously with pubs and clubs on a main street there’s going to be noise. Why move to one if you don’t like noise?

So please go on the council website and say something positive about the club, how you feel it’s run, and please just give us any support you can. We are also the training centre for the London County Pool Team Juniors. I have twenty-five kids from the age of eight to eighteen that get free-play every day since I started here. No other pub in London gives that sort of service. If I have to close this down or change back into a snooker club they are going to lose out.”