Is another London pub getting shut by Asif Aziz?

Dear Londoners — it’s been another hectic week here at Londoner HQ, as we deftly navigate our way through staff absences and legal threats. This week’s Monday briefing is being brought to you by Andrew  — who is frantically typing this at a speed that will do permanent damage to his keyboard. But for those of you missing Hannah’s encyclopaedic knowledge of new food and gallery openings, worry not! She will be back tomorrow and The Londoner will return to full strength, just in time to bring you some sizeable exposés, some of which have been months in the making. But first, enjoy this Monday Briefing, which has an update on our investigation into every Londoner's favourite billionaire developer, Asif Aziz.

Big story: The Greenwich pub facing closure thanks to Asif Aziz

Top line: Another London pub — this time one in Greenwich — is being shuttered by a company linked to billionaire landlord Asif Aziz.

Catch-up: The Londoner recently published a landmark investigation into Asif Aziz, the multi-billionaire property developer, who owns huge swathes of London, from Oxford Street souvenir stores to the Trocadero Centre. Aziz has become infamous for his recent exploits, from attempting to evict the beloved Prince Charles Cinema to successfully closing down the world’s first YMCA.

We exposed how companies linked to Aziz owned at least 29 different pubs across London that either closed or faced the imminent threat of closure. Many of them were redeveloped into flats or just left empty. The investigation involved spending days manually searching through council planning permission databases, and given the lack of transparency and the sheer number of companies linked to Aziz, we were sure our figure was almost certainly an underestimate. Well today, we got confirmation that the figure is now at least one pub higher. 

What happened in Greenwich: The Duke of Greenwich, near Greenwich Park, only opened two years ago, but posted on Instagram that it was being forced to shutter as they “could not agree terms with the landlord”, an Isle of Man based company called Hamna Wakaf. For those unfamiliar, that firm is one of the main vehicles linked to Asif Aziz behind pub closures and attempted redevelopments all over the capital.

Hamna Wakaf strikes again: Hamna Wakaf has been at the scene of multiple pub closures in London, including the nearby China Hall. Despite being 300-years-old, the pub’s landlord of 35 years Micky Norris was forced out in 2018 after Hamna Wakaf said they would be doubling the rent. Norris and his family were left homeless, and he eventually died in 2023, a year before a judgment that curtailed Hamna Wakaf’s attempts to illicitly redevelop the pub he had devoted his adult life to.

Back in Greenwich: Hamna Wakaf had previously won planning permission to build housing in the pub’s beer garden despite vociferous and angry opposition from locals. The project didn’t ever go ahead and the permission has now lapsed, but it sets the tone for the now impending closure and has sparked fears of a potential wholesale attempt to redevelop the entire site.

A final goodbye: The owner has said this weekend — set to be the Duke of Greenwich’s last —  will see “lots of food given away, very cheap drinks” and they “will be selling all the furniture” for a bargain.

Your news briefing

🚇 Despite rumours of a last minute reprieve, Tube strikes are starting today and lasting until Thursday. The cause is a dispute over pay and working hours: the RMT trade union not only wants a pay increase to match inflation for TfL staff (not train drivers, as is often assumed) but are demanding weekly schedules be reduced from 35 hours to 32 hours to try and address fatigue among members. While TfL offered a 3.4% pay increase, the body said they couldn’t sanction a reduction in working hours, as it was “neither practical nor affordable” for the network. Check out a full explainer on the dispute in the BBC here.

⚽ A Chinese community women’s football team in North London has described being harassed with racist slurs and pelted with footballs during a training session in Islington, reports the Islington Tribune. The team has been forced to relocate where it trains twice in the past as the result of similar abuse, but have vowed to carry on playing at their current site after an outpouring of support and new security promises from Islington Council.

🚨 A YouTuber who attends and films far-right rallies outside asylum hotels (including recent protests in Epping) and claims to promote the “protection of women and children” is actually a convicted pedophile. Anthony Styles had been put on the sexual offenders register for life after being convicted for sexually assaulting teenage girls on two occasions being found to be in possession of hundreds of indecent images of children. 

Quick hits: Spurs have been forced to reject multiple takeover bids after the surprise news that chairman Daniel Levy was standing down; the Tate Modern is set to host the biggest ever Tracey Emin exhibit in Spring, and a record store owner hired out a whole reggae choir to propose to his girlfriend on the streets of Brixton.

In case you missed it… 

• Our Saturday read was equal parts an interview with James Hyman — who runs one of the world’s biggest cultural archives from a set of storage units opposite a South London bus garage — and a lyrical exploration of what it means to archive and document the physical remnants of the past. It’s well worth a read. It also taught me the meaning of the word pareidolia.
• On Thursday, Peter Carlyon spoke to the capital’s hidden workforce of medical couriers, who happen to be predominantly made up of Brazilians, about their days ferrying blood, tissue and urine samples across the city.
• Wednesday saw another edition of ‘My first year in London’, this time with David Ginsberg — a West London native who grew up among the founders of Notting Hill Carnival. 

Wining and dining

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

One perfect meal: It was a drunken Saturday night and I had just been rejected from a free, but sadly overcrowded, film screening of the 2024 Nosferatu remake in the Nunhead Cemetery. It felt like my weekend was beyond rescue; that I would be consigned to a spiralling depression for my hour-long trip back to Kilburn. That is until I made the correct decision to go to La Placita. Basically a miniature shopping mall in New Cross, every store is a different Latin American restaurant, each of which agressively compete for your order as you sit in the communal seating area. The food is one of the few things that could pull me back from the brink, if only by driving out the disappointment filling my body by filling it instead with an avalanche of slow cooked plantain and fresh empanadas.

One perfect drink: While The Duke of Greenwich may be set to close, its sister pub on a quiet side street Kennington — The Jolly Gardeners — is open. Go in, grab a pint and raise your glass in honour of every pub this city has lost to billionaire developers and their identikit luxury flats.

Our favourite read

Manchester’s chief flag-raiser has put his people smuggling days behind him — Jack Walton, The Manchester Mill

This amazing exposé by our sister site in Manchester first landed last week, but given the ongoing flag and asylum hotel protests in London it felt worthwhile. Jack Walton investigates how one of the men behind a network of St. George’s flags being raised all over Manchester is both a vociferous critic of migration and, erm, a convicted people smuggler.

To Do List

Ever wanted to know more about how The National Theatre puts together some of its most intricate shows? The Wolfson Gallery is hosting a free exhibition from Tuesday on how London’s most iconic theatre has gone about over its existence adapting ancient Greek plays for modern audiences.

We’ve mentioned this one when it was first announced, but a huge exhibition on David Bowie at the V&A’s new East Storehouse in Stratford, curated by indie darlings The Last Dinner party and showcasing 90,000 items related to the musician, is opening on Saturday.

From the archives

On the subject of Bowie, watch this synced-up live performance of Heroes from his iconic 1978 set at Earl’s Court.