Don’t be fooled, there is a war going on against the UK`s nightclubs.

Life has never been tougher for the nightclub industry, a look at a random week in the new gives dozens of horror stories, the press has never been quicker to bring every incident to the front page, these are just a few of the stories from a single week in the news.

Add to these results such as this:

“The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court ruling last year that Luminar Leisure is vicariously liable for the actions of a bouncer working at their Chicago Rock Café in Southend, even though he wasn’t directly employed by them. Both defendants have today agreed to an interim payment of £25,000 between them.”

Quotes from the media like;

“LEE Holland was stabbed three times in a street brawl in 2004, and has never seen his attackers brought to justice. The 22-year-old was with friends at Liquid Nightclub when the group were involved in an argument which spilled out on to the street.”

And government figures from the home office such as:

“One-third of all 10- to 17-year-olds had been to a pub or bar without their parents in the previous 12 months and around one-quarter (26%) had been to a nightclub. Unsurprisingly, this was more common amongst the 16- to 17-year-old age group. Girls aged 16 to 17 were more likely to have gone to a nightclub (62%) than their male counterparts (53%) although this may have been a result of girls having more success at gaining entrance to nightclubs than boys.”

It would be easy to think this is just scare mongering, but these are just a tiny sample of the hundreds of news stories in just the last few months.

The results are clear, bad press, town centres are reporting lower attendance in venues, and its becoming more common for licence extensions to be refused and planning permission for new venues to be turned down.

“Chicago Rock loses bid to open after midnight
A bid to relax planning curbs on hours of opening for a large cafe and bar at the Chichester
Gate leisure complex has been rejected by a government inspector.”

“Norwich's "nightclub alley" has been labelled a hotbed of criminal activity by a senior police officer.
An appeal hearing at Norwich Crown Court was told that if another nightclub opened on
Prince of Wales Road, it could have very severe consequences.”

The seriousness of the situation came home to us when our sales manager had an appointment to visit the Creation nightclub in Leeds, and arrived to find police on the door, and this in the local paper a few days later.

“Man dies after nightclub shooting”
A 27-year-old man who was shot inside a nightclub in Leeds city centres more than a week ago has died. Aaron Watson, of Harehills, Leeds, was shot in the stomach while standing near the DJ's station at the Creation nightclub in Cookridge Street on 1 May. He died in Leeds General Infirmary on Tuesday night, police said.”