All quiet on the River Front

The City Barge on Sunday 5 July, with people sitting outside as normal

Strand on the Green pubs back to normal, after a mad week of media frenzy

Somewhere there’s a Sociology or Media Studies lecturer looking for a case study to illustrate the arc of the modern news story to discuss with their students. I’d like to suggest this week’s saga of the tables outside the pubs at Strand on the Green.

In the space of a week it went from a little local difficulty about licensing to national news, with versions of the story in the Telegraph, the Mail, the Times, LBC and others, to a debate on GB News and commentary on American websites about how Britain is now a ‘Police State’.

How did it get there? Social media of course, by way of a ragbag of political agendas.

But first a quick update for those who actually care about whether you can sit outside the riverside pubs in Chiswick and eat and drink in the sunshine. Yes you can, it’s all sorted – at least until the pubs hear the outcome of their licensing applications.

The Bull’s Head, The City Barge and the Bell & Crown all had people sitting outside yesterday, happily enjoying their Sunday lunch.

Sunday lunch at the Bulls Head, Sunday 5 July

What happened exactly?

A few weeks ago – The Bull’s Head applied to renew its pavement licence to have tables and chairs outside by the riverside.

Cllr Rick Rowe

A copy was sent to local councillors and the new Green Party councillor for Chiswick Riverside Rick Rowe responded, asking Council officers to review their licence and those of the other two pubs on Strand on the Green while they were at it.

He was concerned there was insufficient space for people to walk along the river when the pubs were crowded and there was seating on both sides of the towpath.

‘What I did was ask a reasonable question when the Bull’s Head pavement licence application was circulated…

‘it was entirely proper for a ward councillor to ask officers whether the correct permissions were in place and whether the position was being applied consistently.

‘That is very different from asking for enforcement action. I did not ask for the pubs to be told to remove their outside seating.

‘I did not ask for a hard-line approach. I did not ask for action to be taken in a way that would damage valued local businesses during the busiest part of the year’.

Bulls Head on Sunday 28 June, showing ample space for a double buggy

Council officers investigated, found the Bull’s Head and The City Barge did not have permission to put shelves on the tow path railings and told them to take them down, which they did. They also found The City Barge and the Bell & Crown did not have licences for outside furniture.

Bell & Crown general manager Fiona Sparkes demonstrating the amount of space between their tables and the chairs along the wall

You have four days to remove your tables or be fined

Tuesday 23 June – The Bell & Crown had a visit from a Hounslow licensing officer on Tuesday, telling them they had four days to get a licence or they face the choice of removing the tables and chairs or receiving a daily fine.

General Manager Fiona Sparkes put in a licence application that same day and was told the fastest Hounslow Council could fast track an application was 14 days. She asked for a grace period while the licence application was pending.

The acting General Manager of The City Barge, Nick Ivanov, was told the same. His reponse was that they didn’t need a licence as the pub owned the strip of land alongside the building and said the matter was in the hands of Greene King’s solicitors.

Magda, the General Manager of The Bull’s Head, was told she could keep her tables and chairs out while their application was reviewed.

Monday 29 June – Deadline for The City Barge and the Bell & Crown to remove the tables and chairs.

Fiona leaves hers out, having not heard back from the Council officer. Nick stacks his up outside the pub “just to be on the safe side”.

Riverside councillor Amy Croft, (Labour) the newly appointed Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, under whose remit licensing now falls, asks Council officers to give the pubs a grace period while they apply for licences and is told once a licence infringement is discovered the council has to act on it straight away.

The City Barge with the tables piled up on Tuesday

Tuesday 30 June – The Chiswick Calendar publishes the story

READ ALSO: Council tells riverside pubs at Strand on the Green to remove outside seating

The Chiswick Calendar publishes the story. Immediately the pubs receive a wave of support from local people and Cllr Rowe receives a flood of emails – 20 in the first hour, 80 by the end of the evening, as well as messages on social media from people concerned about the impact on the pubs.

‘Stranded by the Greens’ demonstration outside The City Barge, organised by the local Conservative party on Wednesday; Photograph Belinda Jiao

Wednesday 1 July – It all kicks off

2.06 pm Alastair Hilton, former Chiswick estate agent turned professional photographer, posts to his 86k followers:

‘This is the City Barge pub in Chiswick right now. What do you notice? It’s 3pm and they’re open. It’s a sunny day. Yes, that’s right; they have had to remove all of the tables and chairs outside. They have had to destroy their own business’.

It receives 2m views.

He squarely blames Rick and claims (erroneously) that Hounslow Council ‘has banned all three pubs here on strand on the Green Chiswick, from having outside tables’.

Rick receives a torrent of abuse on social media and takes to social media himself to say he had not asked for the tables and chairs to be removed, he supports local businesses and he had not expected the reaction from the Council to be quite so draconian.

‘Fascist womble’ is one of the kinder things he is called. The Council also gets the blame for being Labour killjoys.

3.00pm Cllr Amy Croft visits the Bell & Crown and The City Barge to say she has had another meeting with Licensing officers, who have decided they could hold off enforcing the fines after all and the pubs can keep their tables and chairs outside as long as they apply for licences. She tells them the good news.

The Chiswick Calendar publishes a second story.

READ ALSO: Council relent over ban on outside seating at Strand on the Green pubs

Alastair Hilton; Post on X about the Conservatives’ demonstration 

‘Stranded by the Greens’ demo

5.00 pm The local Conservative party organises a ‘demonstration’ outside The City Barge and issues a press release wittily titled ‘Stranded by the Greens’.

This is picked up by Alastair who posts:

‘Protest meeting at City Barge about this at 5pm today. If you don’t want the Green Party or Labour to destroy pubs and the British way of life, then come along’.

He happens to mention that Rick lives nearby.

The Telegraph sends a photographer.

Telegraph story, Wednesday evening

Telegraph story

7.30 pm The Telegraph publishes a piece which is picked up by other press:

Pub-goers have triumphed over a Labour-run council which threatened to ban them from drinking along the riverside of a west London suburb.

In it, Cllr Gabriella Giles, the Conservative councillor for Chiswick Riverside, describes the Council’s action as ‘an abuse of power’.

Versions of the story appear in the Daily Mail, The Times, the Evening Standard and on LBC‘s website in the next couple of days.

LBC: Pubs win battle against council which ‘threatened to ban’ outdoor riverside drinking

Daily Mail: Pubs triumph over Labour council after being told to remove outside seating overlooking the River Thames ‘following single complaint’

Police have ‘a conversation’ with Alastair outside the Bell & Crown, which he videos; Times post on X

A conversation with the police

Later that night – Alastair is drinking in the Bell & Crown when two police officers come into the pub and ask to speak to him.

They go outside, Alastair records the conversation, which goes on for twelve minutes, during which they warn him his comments on social media come near the threshold to be regarded as harrassment. He establishes they do not cross the threshold and he has committed no crime.

He asks why the police would send two officers to ‘threaten’ and ‘intimidate’ him while they do not attend when actual crimes are committed. He cites the example of his 24 year old daughter lying asleep in her houseboat when the window next to where she was sleeping was smashed in and, he says, she was told the police were unable to help.

He posts the video online and it has been viewed 8.5m times (at time of writing).

He later posts that there has been some sort of confrontation between him and Rick in the pub and he is expecting to be arrested, announcing dramatically:

‘If I do not post on here in the morning, it means the police have again acted on the orders of a Green Party candidate and have arrested me’.

Dail Mail headline news on Thursday 2 July

Thursday 2 July – A row about licensing rapidly escalates into one about Britain becoming a ‘Police State’

Former Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter James May, who lives locally, posts:

‘I’m genuinely interested to know if you’ve woken up in the gulag. Bang on the pipes if you need us to batter the door down with a pub bench.’

Alastair is not arrested. The story leads the Daily Mail.

Broadcaster and journalist Michael Crick comments:
‘Ridiculous waste of police time’.

Journalist Allison Pearson urges Alastair to sue to the police.

The Times story, Friday 3 July

‘Police have started a row over free speech’

There is a new raft of stories about Alastair’s conversation with the police.

11.25 am Daily Mail:
‘Police state’ row as officers track down man who criticised his local Green councillor over outdoor drinking ban and left him fearing arrest

2.35 pm The Times:
Police confront pub campaigner over row about riverside seating

‘Police have started a row over free speech by intervening in a neighbourhood dispute over a pub’s riverside seating. Uniformed officers warned a vocal campaigner against protesting outside a local councillor’s home’.

The story is taken up by supporters of the Free Speech Union, including former Conservative minister David Davis MP, and seized upon by American websites as evidence that Britain is now a police state.

According to one, Britain is ‘in the midst of a dark censorship nightmare’. It is also reported in India on a news channel in a segment on life in Britain.

Sunday Times correspondent Charlotte Ivers summed it up thus at the end of this surreal week:

‘Petty rules about pubs’ outdoor seating make me despair of modern British values as busybodies of all political stripes prosper’.

Two cops stumble into a bar-related farce — but the joke’s on us

Police officers not from our local Neighbourhood Policing team

The Chiswick Calendar spoke to Sergeant Gareth O’Donnell about it, who heads up Chiswick’s Neighbourhood Policing team.

He confirmed the officers had not been from his team and instead had been sent by the Response team based in Feltham.

“In my opinion it was better to pre-emptively tell him if he was close to the  line of committing an offence. It was a proportionate response.

“We do not only respond to crime, we also make interventions to warn people so they don’t break the law”.

Following the deaths of MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, both murdered while making themselves available to the public in their consituencies, if elected politicians flag concerns about their safety the police are duty bound to take it seriously and follow up.

Outside the Bell & Crown on Sunday 5 July

Meanwhile at Strand on the Green

Saturday 4 July – The City Barge puts their tables back out, having decided to put in an application for a licence for outside furniture after all.

Sunday 5 July – All three pubs have happy punters outside quietly enjoying their Sunday lunch by the river.