Popular live music venue had clashed with opponents over noise concerns
Arts Bar opened on Hope Street in 2019(Image: Liverpool Arts Bar)
A popular Liverpool live music bar warned over noise issues has got the go ahead to stay open later. Since opening back in 2019, Liverpool Arts Bar has proven a hit with locals on Hope Street, having been devised as a space to promote the city’s grassroots art scene.
Such has been the success of the site, the brand expanded last year to open Arts Bar Baltic on Parliament Street. However, tensions arose over plans for the business to extend its opening hours in the city centre over potential noise concerns.
Proposals for the venue to extend its opening and live music hours were met with initial objections by environmental health representatives and the Hope Street Theatre with which the venue shares its home. Now, in a short meeting of the city council’s licensing and gambling sub-committee, terms have been agreed for the extension to go-ahead.
Currently, the bar is permitted to open from 9am to 1.30am daily and has permission to perform both live and recorded music until 1am. The business was seeking to extend these terms by an additional hour to 2am.
Dr Ian Rushforth from the city’s environmental health team said it had received a noise complaint about the operation of the premises, in particular due to live music/drumming. In a written submission to the sub-committee, he said a warning letter had previously been sent to the Arts Bar.
Tom Wilson owner of Arts Bar(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
The Arts Bar shares the building it calls home with organisations including Hope Street Theatre, Performers Theatre School and Merseyside Academy of Drama. It is leased to the organisations by the Freemasons.
Meetings took place between objectors and the bar took place in November – with a proposed sub-committee hearing postponed – to thrash out terms, including a reconfiguration of non-licensed areas of the building. Representatives confirmed a deal had been reached that would allow the licence to be extended and would be exclusively held by the Arts Bar, rather than the entire building as previously set.
It will extend across the two floors of the building the venue occupies. Conditions will also be imposed to ensure that the business is mindful of term times around the theatre with which it shares the building.