In a shocking revelation, Jeremy Joseph has revealed that the landlord of G-A-Y Late wants to raise the rent to nearly THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILLION POUNDS a year.
Speaking to Vanessa Feltz on her BBC London show, Jeremy Joseph spoke about how G-A-Y Late’s venue, is under rent review following demands from the landlord that the rent to be raised from £300,000 to £700,000 a year a whopping £400,000 increase.
He told Vanessa,
“Rent is just ridiculous. G-A-Y Late, one of our venues, is up for rent review at the moment.
“We currently pay up to £300,000 rent a year. The landlord is trying to get it up to £700,000, so we’re in a rent review.
“A rent review alone costs thousands of pounds.
“It’s taken six months for us to get to a point of arbitration, and I only found out a couple of weeks ago that the arbitrator will now decide how much we have to pay.
“Once they decide how much, there will be no appeal whatsoever.
“Whatever that rent is – and it could be double – we have no say in it.”
If the rent review finds that £750,000 is an appropriate price for the central London venue, it could force the closure of G-A-Y Late. Jeremy told Vanessa that the bar was “completely under threat”.
Rent reviews are a process which compares the average rents in a particular area. Landlords can drive up the rents if other properties are in a higher price bracket.
Speaking to THEGAYUK.com about rent increases in 2016 Jeremy said,
“It’s so hard to know, because one of the biggest fears at the moment is it’s not just the gay scene that is in trouble at the moment, it’s established shops in Soho for the last 30 years.
“Rent increases, the way it kind of works is whenever you have a rent renewal, they can increase the rent.
“When they increase rent, it’s based upon what other places are paying around your area. Anytime a new shop comes along and it may be a new restaurant all that, they agree with huge rent increase.
Recently THEGAYUK.com found that over 115 venues across London had closed since the year 2000. A new project called the Lost LGBT Scene project was created to create an online archive of photos and memories of the various venues that have been lost in the UK’s capital.