Sadiq Khan objects to Westminster's new Soho venue rule

Sadiq Khan has objected to a Westminster Council proposal that could stop new venues in Soho from offering "music, dancing and similar entertainment." The Conservative-run council is consulting on a draft policy covering some of the city's busiest nightlife districts. Under the plan, the council says it would "normally refuse" licence applications for new pubs, bars, fast food premises or entertainment venues inside its West End Cumulative Impact Zone, which takes in Soho and most of the West End.

The Guardian reported that the plan follows pressure from the Soho Society, a local residents' group that says it works to preserve the area's character; at an AGM earlier this year the group voted to push for a new licensing policy and to challenge new bar applications. The society had also recommended stopping nightlife businesses from operating beyond the council's "core hours" of 10:30pm to midnight.

The draft policy also targets what it calls "vertical drinking," recommending that venues move away from customers ordering and standing at the bar and instead serve food and drink "by waiter or waitress service only," a shift the council says would discourage "excessive drunkenness."

Responding on August 6, the Mayor of London wrote on X: "You can't run a world-famous nightlife district with a village-hall mindset," adding that hospitality and nightlife "support jobs, culture and growth." A spokesperson for Khan told the Guardian the plan was "more evidence that restrictive and anti-growth policies aren't working," adding that licensing rules are "stacked against" venues that need support.

Night Time Industries Association chief executive Michael Kill called the plan "a significant shift in direction that should concern the entire hospitality sector," arguing that existing licensing law already gives councils power to act against poorly run venues. Westminster Council deputy leader Tim Barnes defended the proposal as guidance meant to encourage venues to "manage their customers so people don't pack on to pavements or excessive drinking doesn't disturb others passing by."

The dispute lands inside a wider crisis for UK venues. The Music Venue Trust's latest annual report found that 30 grassroots venues closed permanently and another 48 stopped hosting live music between July 2024 and July 2025, with more than half of grassroots venues reporting no profit over that period and 6,000 jobs lost. Khan and former Night Czar Amy Lame also drew criticism in 2024 for describing London as having a "24 hour culture" even as clubs and bars kept closing, and Westminster Council unveiled a separate plan for "quiet nights" and "quiet zones" in its area last year.

Khan is expected to be given new powers later this year that would let him intervene in some licensing decisions made by London councils in areas considered important to the city's night-time economy, though the timing of that change has not been set.