Hove restaurant boss Emad Abdolkhani will have to wait until next month to learn what sanction if any he faces after police saw staff alter official records.
Councillors heard more than three hours of testimony yesterday (Wednesday 19 June) after Sussex Police asked Brighton and Hove City Council to review the licence for Mr Abdolkhani’s business, Persia, in Church Road, Hove.
The hearing before three councillors – Theresa Fowler, Jackie O’Quinn and Alison Thompson – overran its allocated time before any of the parties could summarise the evidence.
The hearing will resume at a second session next month to allow for summing up and the council licensing panel’s deliberations.
Sussex Police licensing officer Mark Thorogood told the hearing that he went to the restaurant with PC Andre Bernascone and Sergeant Vince Lam and asked to inspect training records.
After six minutes spent waiting for Mr Abdolkhani, Mr Thorogood was considering seeking him out when PC Bernascone spotted a female staff member using correcting fluid to amend paperwork.
PC Bernascone saw the woman through a window in the floor of Persia’s first-floor shisha lounge.
In a short closed session the panel saw bodycam footage of the incident from both PC Bernascone and Sergeant Lam.
When the records were handed to the police, they found dates changed from 2023 to 2024 on two sheets – and the correcting fluid was still wet. But the sign-off date was unchanged Sunday 30 July 2023.
Mr Thorogood said: “When challenged on what we had seen, Mr Abdolkhani denied knowing his employee had altered the record. Training is vital in ensuring that all the licensing objectives are being promoted.
“An employee seeming to alter these records obviously leads us to believe that the training conditions within the licence are not being adhered to and appropriate training is not being conducted.”
Police also said that they had problems obtaining closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage after someone reported a crime – and the premises had historic high readings for cocaine in the toilets.
Senior planning enforcement officer Emma Lawrence told the panel that the first-floor shisha lounge did not have planning permission and an enforcement notice would be issued.
The council turned down a planning application for an extension from Mr Abdolkhani. He appealed but his appeal was rejected.
A senior Home Office immigration official, Harry Taylor, said that checks were carried out in October 2021 and February last year. Officials found two men in the kitchen who did not have the right to work in Britain.
Mr Abdolkhani said that on both occasions the men were there to eat because he provided food to asylum-seekers through his mosque.
Mr Taylor said that Mr Abdolkhani was advised not to have anyone in the kitchen unless they were working at the restaurant.
He told the panel that, on both occasions, men were seen to drop utensils and had food debris on their clothes. On the second occasion, one man was wearing Crocs shoes but switched into trainers when he fetched his coat.
Mr Abdolkhani’s lawyer Claire Nevin, a barrister at Francis Taylor Building, said that, in asking the council to revoke Persia’s licence, police had not taken a stepped and measured approach.
Miss Nevin said that the footwear issue was a cultural misunderstanding because Muslims removed their shoes to pray and there was a prayer space in the basement at Persia.
She said that Mr Abdolkhani was an experienced licence holder whose business was not in “flagrant violation” of the licensing objectives.
He had taken action after cocaine was found in the toilets and the most recent readings were low or nil – and CCTV was provided to police on request.
Miss Nevin said: “None of this squares with what we say is the police’s inaccurate account of an uncompliant problematic premises. There is no basis … for revoking the premises licence.
“Revocation should always be a last resort and this is in line with the stepped approach set out in the Home Office statutory guidance from December 2023.”
She said that the planning issues were not matters for the licensing panel and added that Mr Abdolkhani had not received a penalty after the checks by immigration enforcement officials.
The council could revoke Persia’s licence or suspend it for up to three months, replace the dedicated premises supervisor, who has responsibility for alcohol, modify the conditions and / or remove a licensable activity.
The panel will reconvene hearing at a yet unspecified date in July.
The scene with the wet correcting fluid is vintage stuff. Worthy of a modern-day Ealing film.
Seems a lot of resources put in to close a small restaurant. A police licensing officer needs two other officers to go and check paperwork. Immigration offences which received no fines from three years ago. Historic drug tests. . Difficulty getting CCTV . Difficulty getting CCTV , Police time spent attending licensing panels.
None of it seems a big deal .
Maybe you are not aware of Emad Abdolkhani’s serial violation with any authority in any of his restaurants. it isn’t just this one. There was Barcode prior to this.
The man is a known problem and if you take what you see here at face value, you are missing the point entirely. This man is a wannabe underworld villain and belongs in jail for a long time, or deported. As with previous restaurants, all he does is move a few doors along and open something else under another name, then continues his association with drug dealers and does it all over again. He knows he can continue like this forever and knows that the law is ineffective. But at least we know that Claire Nevin and the law firm Francis Taylor Building are dodgy underworld associates.
When considering the drug dealing problems and small-time gangster mentality of Brighton and Hove, this little $h1t represents that, entirely. We need to be rid of him and other scum like him. I’ve met him via work, and his arrogance made me want to vomit.