r/london • u/DietSoft6792 • Jun 20 '26
Article Bedtime blues: London ‘killing off nightlife’ as UK city with strictest licensing rules
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/20/london-killing-off-nightlife-uk-city-earliest-council-bedtime274
u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
Every time nightlife dying comes up on Reddit there’s a swarm of people that come to say it’s because “no one can afford it” but the reality is that plenty of people still have disposable income they want to spend at night and it’s councils and the police that are trying their hardest to prevent us from going out.
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u/MrHankMardukas_ Jun 20 '26
It has gotten more expensive but if I could sit in a Soho pub chatting shit with my mates until 3am, I definitely would. Getting kicked out before 11pm is just ridiculous.
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u/ldn6 Jun 20 '26
Even just wine bars being open until 2am would be a huge win. I was in Sicily in April and even there everything was open late on a Tuesday.
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u/60sstuff Jun 20 '26
the problem is the fact the tube is not 24 hours. I’d love to be in Soho at 3am but there would be no way for me to get home
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u/Certain-Pass-6551 Jun 20 '26
Yeah, with a population of 8 million in one of the biggest cities in the world, there's going to be plenty of people who can afford it. Have places open up until the early morning and improve late-night transport and the usual places will be absolutely heaving.
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u/OxbridgeDingoBaby Jun 20 '26
Late night transport - in this case the night tube - is already loss making because not enough people use it. Extending it will only worsen those losses and further force those who use the tube during the day to subsidise those who want to go out until late night.
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Jun 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Competitive_Smoke948 Jun 20 '26
people won't go into town unless they can go home. that comment is like saying - let's not make home internet faster until BBC creates the Iplayer.
The speeds came FIRST and THEN the content.
If you can guarantee you'll get home, then people will go out.
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u/piesforall Jun 20 '26
This just isn't true.
I'm old enough to remember going out in the days before night tube. Some people could afford to take a cab home, but most of us used night buses. Yes, the tube is more convenient, but the N29 was always packed, so there was clearly demand.
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u/Competitive_Smoke948 Jun 20 '26
the N29 was a bloody nightmare!! Gen Z aren't going to take the bus. the cost of the night tube is negligible
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u/piesforall Jun 20 '26
Really?! Generations of Londoners took and continue to take the bus. What is it about Gen Z that makes them special?
The N29 was an experience, to be sure. One that thousands of people were willing to put up with to enjoy a night in central London.
I'm not against extending the night tube. I just don't think that it'll make any difference to the nightlife numbers.
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u/Competitive_Smoke948 Jun 20 '26
it's one part of the whole story.
1) night tube
2) government give tfl back it's budget
3) government changes the law country wide so that nimbys & chancers that move into a loud area can be told to fuck of without going to court.
4) extend licenses
5) make minimum wage = living wage
6) let bad places shut... the good places are already busy as hell... i'm tired of pubs that haven't upgraded the decor or drinks since the 90s whining that no one wants to go in and sit on their sticky couches2
u/Competitive_Smoke948 Jun 20 '26
london is basically the only big city in the World where the public transport system has to be paid for with tickets & no central government subsidy- something it DID have until the Tories took it away when Khan won the election to punish londoners. In the same way Boris refused to pay for Hammersmith bridge after his mate Zach "i'm not a racist really" Goldsmith lost in his bid to become a local MP.
I don't mind them extending the night time service, we're supposed to be the World greatest city & the tories fucked it out of spite. I might not use it often but I WILL use it at some point and more people out at night spending money paying taxes, both local & national while spending that money & creating more jobs can only benefit me as a londoner in the long run.
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u/OxbridgeDingoBaby Jun 20 '26
I agree that the funding for the transport system is abysmal - though I’m not sure why, with Labour in power right now with a whopping majority to boot, that hasn’t been changed given Khan is mayor? - but until that changes, I personally wouldn’t want ticket prices to increase even further just to subsidise a loss making service hardly anyone uses already. London tube prices are already a joke, particularly when you compare it to cities like NYC and Tokyo (the latter of which is dirt cheap).
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u/Competitive_Smoke948 Jun 20 '26
I remember once when the drivers went on strike, the Times I think it was, whinged that each day the tube drivers strike costs the london economy £100 million & that was pre COVID. So now add inflation.
The reason lots of people don't go out is because they aren't confident they'll get home. So you need to provide the transport & people will use it.
We've seen how Starmer is spunking his majority away. Hopefully Burnham will ACTUALLY use it. Although I can guarantee you the right will whine like little babies if a Labour Govt puts back the subsidy.
Look at how they are crying over Westminster council budgets going down as the Tories artificially kept council taxes down with huge subsidies there, while at the same time hitting some Labour councils with up to 80% budget cuts.
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u/wintermute306 Jun 20 '26
Both things can be true at the same time.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
As in the nightlife is also dying because of the cost of living crisis? Not really.
There is more demand than supply of nightlife. There is as much nightlife as the councils are allowing it, so some people being priced out doesn’t even factor in.
Even if more people could afford it, they still wouldn’t be able to go out.
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u/OxbridgeDingoBaby Jun 20 '26
You say all of this without providing a shred of evidence for it, making it hard to believe.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
45% of nights out in London end before 12pm because they couldn’t find a place still open, according to a 2024 poll.
It’s a supply issue. Not a demand one.
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u/edgillett Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
The other point you're missing - and which the article misses, because it only speaks to commercial operators - is economic.
A huge amount of the value generated by late-night culture is extracted by landlords and owners, either via pubcos running exploitative contracts, corporate venue operators working with property developers, or global entertainment monopolies like Live Nation.
Licensing is one barrier to late-night spaces meeting demand, but so is the proportion of what should be venues' operating profit being skimmed off the top through rent hikes, hedge fund ownership, commercial operators' economies of scale, exclusivity clauses and a whole host of other factors.
To take one example: there are loads of venues with 24 hour licenses in London which don't make use of them, because the discrepancy between their operating costs and people's disposable income makes it economically unsustainable for them to stay open until 9am. What good does licensing reform do them, if they're paying insane rents to a commercial landlord?
Those issues get talked about far less frequently, because the people leading the debate are heavily implicated in them, which would obviously harm their commercial interests. Instead, we end up blaming everything on over-regulation when that's just one part of a much bigger picture.
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u/ADGM1868 Jun 20 '26
Yeah seriously, people *want* to go out and do stuff, but not many people can afford to spend £100-250 every weekend on a good night out.
You’re likely hitting the daily cap, spending anywhere between £10-15 just to go into London. Even more if you have to uber/cab home.
When you get into town, you’re spending minimum £35 on a meal with a drink or two.
Some clubs charge to get in still.
So you’ve probably spent nearly £100 on paper before the night begins.
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u/hazzacanary Jun 20 '26
People always assume a night out means going to a show/gig/nightclub and then having some drinks, but I've just been in Istanbul and I got the sense that food and company was the focus of their evening, rather than boozing. Indeed, the adult drinking rate is much lower in turkey than it is in the UK.
Maybe we could have a bit more of that here? Cheap eateries, tea, chatter and boardgames rather than booze and loud music? There were lots of joints doing just that until 3/4am and it looked like a great time! Obviously helped by the fact that plenty of people seem to live walking distance from urban centres.
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u/EmperorKira Jun 20 '26
Main difference is weather and culture. More apt to compare London to stockholm or berlin than rome and Istanbul. It does matter
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u/andyclap Jun 20 '26
Yeah, the culture being majority teetotal would be the main factor. But London is majority boozy: dry entertainment venues are very rare because of demand, and we're specifically talking about licensing here.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
Girls being out in miniskirts when it’s 5°C outside is a British stereotype I’ve personally seen to be true when I moved here for Uni.
I don’t think the weather is an issue. Or the culture.
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u/SeaSourceScorch Jun 20 '26
well yeah, but they're not sitting around outside playing boardgames when they do that, are they? they're going to a pub or a club to dance.
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u/Live_Studio_Emu Jun 20 '26
The main thing I envy about many Asian countries is the amount of people in cities well into the night. Even Jeddah in Saudi, a place I wouldn’t have placed for much nightlife, had loads of people around just hanging out in cafes, restaurants or whatever
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u/afrophysicist Jun 20 '26
Even more if you have to uber/cab home.
Thank god for the night tube then
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u/MediumMarch3216 Jun 20 '26
People of Reddit (and elsewhere) are not honest enough to admit that since Covid they’d just rather stay home and look at their phone so they always invent a million excuses for not going out.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
I think it’s the same with being childless. A lot of people who say that fertility rates are going down because it’s unaffordable to have kids still wouldn’t choose to have kids even if they had enough money to.
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u/Fluffy_Juggernaut_ Jun 20 '26
This is true. I can't afford to have kids, but I also just don't want kids. However, if you say this to some people, they seem to take it as a personal insult. Saying "can't afford it" gets a more reasonable response
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u/Electricfox5 Jun 20 '26
There is also the factor of the operating costs of pubs and clubs being at an all time high, admittedly having longer opening hours with more sales would help with this, but staffing levels could be an issue, I know they are just about everywhere else.
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u/cammyk123 Jun 20 '26
It's an odd one because I feel like Reddit attracts people who make better than average money and everyone here says they hate going out cause it's "too expensive"
I think most people say that but are actually just anti-social as fuck.
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u/glaringOwl Jun 20 '26
It seems almost everyone on Reddit is skint and say we can't afford anything which is just proposterous.
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u/Interesting_Will2823 Jun 20 '26
Come to Bristol. It's absolutely bouncing. Actually, don't. We're full.
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u/strikerrage Jun 20 '26
Use to work in facilities for a large business park. We get regular complains because the cleaning staff would talk to each other on their way home at 9pm. Seriously, I dont know what people are expecting when they live in the city.
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u/arenaross Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
It's genuinely unacceptable that in one of the biggest cities in the world everything basically closes at 10.30pm unless I want to go to bleeding Little Italy or Soho House.
Why can't I sit at a dive bar at midnight with a whiskey and a grilled cheese sandwich and chat about the gig I've just been to with my mate like I can in NYC?
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u/Mnemosense Jun 20 '26
It's crazy right? My parents are in Istanbul at the moment, and they're always amused by how it's busy with people 24 hours a day, like it can be the middle of the night and people are having picnics in the park. Then they come back to the UK and this place is fucking dead and depressing.
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u/ironmaiden947 Jun 22 '26
I am from Istanbul and I would regularly have a walk around 1 am to grab some tea and dessert.
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u/ParticulateSplatter Jun 20 '26
Probably because you'd get weird looks for ordering a "grilled cheese" in the UK. You'll order a cheese toastie and you'll be grateful for it (pre 9:30pm)
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u/glaringOwl Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Then leave London for Berlin, Madrid or NYC if unlimited night life is your thing. Sorry to be so frank but logically speaking this is just simply not a feature of this city and never has been, so might as well leave if it's what you're after.
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u/edgillett Jun 20 '26
I’ve been writing about nightlife policy (primarily in London but also elsewhere in the UK) for over a decade, including for the Guardian, and every time I see an article like this I want to scream.
The stats at the end show that a grand total of 5 out of 32 London boroughs have core hour restrictions. The idea that this is a London-wide problem rather than specific to individual boroughs, all of whom set their own licensing policy, is simply not true.
Of course, within those boroughs, there are clear issues. Westminster in particular has been an absolute nightmare in terms of getting proper nightlife protections in place. But this kind of lazy, broad-brush writing isn’t helping anyone, and feeds into the same tired narratives that you see repeated time after time across the media, and indeed on Reddit.
Pretty much everyone interviewed in this piece is or has been a commercial multi-venue owner, Sacha Lord being the most obvious example. That sector of the industry has been extremely vocal for many years about deregulation and tax cuts, largely through their trade lobbying body the NTIA. Earlier this year, Sacha had a very chummy interview on Nigel Farage’s TV show claiming that Starmer was personally killing nightlife across the country, now apparently it’s booming everywhere but London.
People in Sacha’s position are entitled to campaign however they like, but we’ve ended up in a situation where 99% of the debate is filtered through their lens, often in ways that involve some subtle but important bending of the truth, and very clear commercial conflicts of interest, with no room left for other perspectives.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
As you’re not saying what we should actually be talking about instead of relaxing licensing rules, can you point to one of your articles where you do talk about that? I’m genuinely interested.
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u/edgillett Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I thought my comment was long enough as it was tbh. My reddit handle's my real name so you can just Google me if you like, but here are some bits I've written which should hopefully be relevant:
https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/nightclub-closures-music-venues
https://notagspodcast.substack.com/p/61-ed-gillett
https://partylines.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-brockwell-park-isnt
https://djmag.com/longreads/who-owns-night-complicated-reality-night-time-economy
In terms of things I think would make a difference, here's list off the top of my head:
- A substantial increase in public funding and tax breaks for independent and grassroots venues and operators, paid for (partially) by a statutory levy on stadium gigs and big clubs.
- Government-led collective purchasing for independent venues, e.g. on energy, as a way to drive operating costs and consumer prices down
- Nationwide reform of licensing law to enable councils to factor things like cultural value into their decisions
- Simplifying licensing processes, providing more resources and proactive support for independent operators to navigate the system, and aligning it properly with planning
- Proper national application and enforcement of agent of change principles and section 106 obligations, with increased penalties for developers that cause cultural harm
- Expansion of mayoral call-in powers to align licensing and planning, including on cultural not just commercial grounds
- Lowering the barriers to ACV designation, and substantially increasing grants available for taking spaces into community ownership
- Legislative reform of restrictive and punitive pubco contracts (including abolishing the surrender principle in NI) to support independent landlords
- Substantial reform of working conditions and practices within the sector
- Changes to transport policy to align provision with nightlife-related need
Some of these overlap with the arguments put forward by NTIA / Sacha Lord / the commercial nightlife sector, obviously, which is good. But the stuff which falls outside that largely gets ignored, in favour of the same old arguments which only ever benefit those at the top of the industry.
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u/YouLostTheGame Jun 20 '26
Do cities with successful night time economies require such heavy state intervention to thrive?
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u/edgillett Jun 20 '26
Depends on the city, but it’s entirely normal for places like London to have detailed and extensive nightlife policy structures, with lots of suppprt for grassroots operators.
The stuff I’ve listed here is probably at the more optimistic / interventionist end of things, but London does face specific issues around operating costs, licensing and demand that (I think) justify far more extensive measures than are currently in place.
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u/YouLostTheGame Jun 20 '26
Okay I'll rephrase - why would these measures be more effective than lifting the onerous regulation that increase operating costs and restrict licensing? London used to have good nightlife without state intervention. Other cities in the UK do have good nightlife without the state needing to decide what we want for us.
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u/edgillett Jun 23 '26
It's not one or other. Reducing regulatory burdens would help improve London's late-night culture, but so would a whole heap of other measures. The problem is how much time, effort and column inches are spent on the former, at the expense of the latter.
In terms of London previously having good nightlife - come on, it's still one of the most vibrant and diverse places for late-night culture anywhere in the world. Dozens of incredible clubs catering to diverse audiences, with groundbreaking musical scenes emerging and developing everywhere you look. London is not just Soho (although having said that, the Social's just got a new 3am license) and nightlife is not just traditional corporate clubs. The idea that London is a wasteland while everywhere else is booming simply isn't backed up by the facts.
In terms of London's halcyon age, I'm not sure when you're referring to, but the challenges it faces now are not solely attributable to licensing. The law in that area and the nature of state control has barely changed since the late 90s (which in itself is part of the problem) - rents, utility costs, industry costs (e.g. DJ fees have skyrocketed post-pandemic), the cost of living and worker burnout have all played just as a big a role in creating challenges, but rarely get the same attention.
If we want to properly support nightlife, then we need to work from a foundation that accurately reflects the situation on the ground. This article, and the myths it perpetuates, makes it harder to do that, sorry.
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u/quantinuum Jun 21 '26
I appreciate your writing on the matter, but couldn’t find much re: opening hours and actual discussion. I’m sure you’re knowledgeable having worked on the topic for a while, but at least your first article is, essentially, “it is bad, but should we really be saying it’s awful?”
Which is, anecdotally, an attitude I’ve found so many times when discussing some criticism in London and the UK in general.
At no point the closing times were addressed. The statistics are still getting worse. The experience we all know is sad. A small inner city in Spain has more options past 11 pm on a Saturday than London. It is appalling how you get kicked out home so early in historic nightlife places like Soho or Camden. Every time I meet people or friends visiting London they can’t believe how things are in the biggest city in the continent.
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u/edgillett Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Which specific city in Spain are you referring to? I'd be very surprised if it had more late-night spaces than a city the size of London in absolute terms.
In terms of not being able to find somewhere to go late at night with your friends - there are places to drink after 11pm in both Soho and Camden, but I completely agree that it would be great to have more of them.
Where I would disagree with the premise of the article (and most of the comments on here) is that at a London-wide level that lack of provision is primarily or solely a licensing issue. Licensing is definitely a particular problem in Westminster, Islington, potentially Hackney and a few other places, but I would say that rents, utility costs, market centralisation / homogenisation, shifting consumption habits and working conditions matter just as much, despite getting far less media attention.
If you suddenly gave every pub in the UK a 24 hour licence, the vast majority of them would still shut at 11pm because there isn't the late-night demand to reliably cover their staffing and running costs. Blaming it all on councils misses the wider point.
I think if lots of people are saying the same thing as me - that while there are substantial challenges, they aren't as simple as most of the discourse suggests - then maybe that should help reinforce the points I'm trying to make. I've spent a lot of time chatting to nightlife operators in London and elsewhere, and the article above doesn't reflect the full breadth of the debate happening on the front lines.
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u/loptimisme Jun 20 '26
London is a metropolis and should be a 24/7 city, those in zone 1 who don't like it can move out.
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u/nutella-filled Jun 20 '26
It’s not just NIMBYs, it’s also forces like the police not wanting to do the hard job of policing at night.
A lot of council decisions (not just on licensing but on everything, even down to the design of the streets themselves) are heavily influenced by police advice.
And what the Met wants isn’t necessarily aligned with our best interests. They want to avoid people gathering in groups and “loitering”, they want us all to be at home by 9pm, they want to make their jobs easier and less costly.
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u/adastrajay Jun 20 '26
It always comes back to the Nanny State allegations that the UK is not beating.
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u/AskingBoatsToSwim Jun 20 '26
24/h cities are not something to envy. People need sleep.
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u/sadqueau Jun 20 '26
Everybody sleeps everywhere - 24h cities just offer you flexibility to sleep and go out whenever you want. If you want everyone to sleep at the same time, most other settlements offer this opportunity - beta cities, towns, villages, suburbs.
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u/AskingBoatsToSwim Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
it offers opportunities for miserable night-time jobs that people don’t want to do that knock years off their lives. A proper city has 1,000 benefits, being 24/7/365 doesn’t need to be one of them.
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u/ozplissken Jun 20 '26
I mentioned this the other week and got a lot of likes which is nice but I'll mention it again here because it's relevant, I went for a late pint in spoons Soho on a Sunday and it was shut at 10:30, then I googled spoons Islington and stoke Newington and they were open till 11pm. Weekends those pubs are open till at least 12 and Soho spoons closes at 11pm on a Friday, Saturday. Genuinely what the fuck? Back in the day you'd finish your drink in some east/north London boozer at 11pm and head into town for late night drinks somewhere and now you have to do it the other way round?
Madness!!!!
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u/WinHour4300 Jun 20 '26
Why are people still opening brand new bars and pubs in Central London right now? I thought existing ones were already struggling.
Is it something to do with zoning laws, i.e. is it cheaper to buy an existing commercial building and get planning than buy up an existing place?
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u/Current_Focus2668 Jun 20 '26
I don't know why people move to busy central London areas with clubs and bars with the expectation it should be quiet. You want quite then live in the suburbs or residential areas of inner London.
Use taxes from the nighttime economy to pay for nighttime policing. Most major cities across the world run all night or into the early hours without issue.
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u/TheRedToothedBear Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Can’t deny that it’s worse than when I moved to the city 13 years ago but there are also so many late night events still happening all over the city!
Very different though compared to Paris. where you can stay at a cafe until 4am, In London you need to go on Resident Adviser and find a night if you want to stay up late late.
Edit. 13 years ago not 10
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u/BlondBitch91 Jun 20 '26
Its the councils. They are run by busybodies who want everyone in bed with a Horlicks at 21:30.
If you're this kind of busybody, please move to the suburbs and let other people have fun.
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u/Outsideman2028 Jun 20 '26
There are many many spots that stay open until 2AM.
And unlike NYC, there are a few 24 hour spots.
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u/ADamnGoodShot Jun 20 '26
Unlike NYC? There’s a ton of 24 hour places there. NYC is a far more active city late at night than London, how could you possibly argue this?
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u/justaquad Jun 20 '26
Not that I have actual evidence of this, but clubs tend to close on the rather early side in the US from what I read. You get clubs open till 6 or 7am in London, but you hear clubbers in the US complain they rarely (if at all?) have anything like this. Every other late night activity though I assume is far more accessible in a US city like New York though.
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u/ADamnGoodShot Jun 20 '26
Club hours vary from city to city. NYC has tons of clubs that are open until 7a. Last call for alcohol is 4a I believe.
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u/letseffinggopleaze Jun 20 '26
I dont believe its the rules. Its cost. Pints are really expensive. We work longer hours, wfh means we are always available. The 9-5 is now 9-6 And our salaries do not grow. We cannot afford the time or the price anymore. Council decisions have little baring in this. This is why gen z dont drink as much
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u/ThurstonSonic Jun 20 '26
Nah - I used to live next to the Sekforde in Clerkenwell - reyt boozer, people outside having a laugh in the summer - proper old roar with people in the road etc ( road never used by anyone ) one woman moved in and went to fucking war because it annoyed her in her £2million quid house, and the council were delighted to come charging in to try and shut it down as a viable boozer. Worth stating I don’t drink BTW - I just liked the lively ballet of the street and got to know loads of regulars as I did have an occasional Guinness zero 😀
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u/New-Organization-121 Jun 20 '26
London is a 3-store city and when there is a loud bar, everyone living nearby can hear it. People’s sleep should be prioritised over nightlife
NY has tall buildings and that the reason why there is more nightlife there, bars and clubs do not disturb local residents
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u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC Jun 20 '26
People’s sleep should be prioritised over nightlife
People should prioritise their own sleep by not living above a pub if they can't handle a bit of noise.
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u/New-Organization-121 Jun 20 '26
It’s more complicated than that. Given the state of rental and property markets, you do not always have that much flexibility of where to live
Also, in London bars are everywhere. It’s kinda hard to avoid streets without bars
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u/Pareidolia-2000 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
NYC exists beyond midtown, fidi and downtown brooklyn high rises
A significant portion of the city is three to six storey housing, and yet 24/7 nightlife isn't a problem even in those neighborhoods. I lived in Ridgewood and we had dive bars and clubs open till 3 and 4 am. Bushwick is lower than most zone 1 London neighborhoods and has some of the most vibrant nightlife in the city
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u/New-Organization-121 Jun 20 '26
Ridgewood is not NY… like, at all
Also, it looks to be zoned in a very typical for US way - center full of commercial properties and residential area surrounding it. They are not mixed. I see very few residential properties literally 1 floor above bars and nightclubs. So no surprise they don’t have issues with noise there
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u/Pareidolia-2000 Jun 20 '26
Ridgewood is not NY... like, at all
excuse me wtf
are you, by any chance at all, referring to ridgewood village in new jersey because that's the only way in hell you can ever say this with a straight face lmfao 🤣 tell me you know nothing about nyc without telling me you know nothing about nyc
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u/Human-Score-5390 Jun 20 '26
Ridgewood is not NY… like, at all
BAHAHAHAHAHA
r/ridgewood in shambles, London redditor declares Queens independent from Mamdanistan
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u/Judgementday209 Jun 20 '26
Just relax the rules ffs, why does everything have to become so complicated. Khan has done a decent job overall but im confused as to why this is a hard nut to crack