A CAFE owner has refuted claims his establishment has become a gang haunt, as police seek to have his licence to trade revoked.
Cafe Society, in Windsor Close, Brentford, has been the focus of intense police activity this year amid rumours that west London gangs were regularly hanging around and organising events.
The issue reached a crisis point in September, when police say a man was attacked with a machete by a gang member, sustaining a cut that reached his skull.
Ramesh Shah, 66, who has owned the cafe for six years, denied the incident took place, saying the man simply fell and hit his head on a pole, and later drove himself to hospital.
PC Simon Lawrence from Hounslow police said: “This was exactly the sort of incident that police had feared would occur if gang members attended a function and we feel if Mr Shah had followed our guidelines this function would either have been cancelled or steps could have been taken to avoid such an incident.”
Mr Shah, who has lived in Hounslow for 45 years, previously co-operated when police asked him to cancel a number of events earlier this year after it was found gang members were involved.
He was instructed to fill out a form whenever he held an event so police could make background checks to see if organisers, DJs or MCs were gang members.
A comprehensive police report claimed Mr Shah never did this, yet he says he assured them two days before this particular event that it was nothing to do with gangs, so they let it go ahead.
The report condemned the management and security at Cafe Society, saying when police asked to see CCTV footage, staff said there were no external cameras when in fact there were.
The report also claimed door staff witnessed the machete incident but did nothing except tell the victim to run away.
An employee at Top Notch Health Club, next to the cafe, who asked not to be named, supported Mr Shah’s assessment of the cafe.
They said: “We always go there for lunch and the staff all seem really nice. They do all types of events there, from family birthday parties to parties which run into the early hours of the morning, but this one incident just seems unfortunate.”
Mr Shah said he will fight attempts to revoke his late licence, which at 6am is the latest in the borough.
He added: “I’m really not happy about this. I’m not doing anything illegal, I don’t have a link to gangs and I have co-operated with the police. There have only been four incidents in four years of having my late licence and they all happened outside of the cafe. Some people just like to party late and the police cannot understand that.”
