One of London’s only Greek pop music venues may be saved from closure after a council committee decided to halt any changes to its licence last week.
Islington council’s noise team had recommended that bar and restaurant Mythopolis, on City Road, stop selling drinks after 11pm following repeated complaints from neighbouring residents. The venue has a licence to play music and serve alcohol until 3.30am from Thursdays to Saturdays.
Yet last minute negotiations sparked by a recently received acoustic report on the venue persuaded the committee to give Mythopolis until 10 January to find a solution to the noise issues.
Archie Madden, Mythopolis’s legal representative, said the proposed changes would have prompted the venue to close. He said: “It is not a viable business model…the hours are so limited it would turn it [Mythopolis] into a family restaurant.”
The music venue regularly hosts travelling performers from Greece or Cyprus. It also organises exhibitions and has repeatedly been a location for field trips from The Greek Secondary School of London.
A resident who lives in the property directly behind Mythopolis had called for it to lose its licence before the meeting. She said in a letter to the council: “The noise is…an issue during the week where live music is played…at an unacceptable noise level at unacceptable times. I must wake up early in the morning to go to work and find it hard to function due to lack of sleep.”
The committee accepted Mythpolis owner Stephanos Makis’ proposals to deaden the noise from the stage, install limiters that cut out music above a certain volume and soundproof a particularly noisy fire exit. Mr Makis must return to the Licensing Sub-Committee on 10 January with concrete proposals to soundproof the venue further.
Speaking following the meeting, Mr Makis said: “We don’t have any fights, we don’t have any drugs. We do make mistakes but I think it’s the only [Greek] place in the Islington area. We don’t want…problems with the neighbours”
