Hi Guys i thought i would write a "little" something to clear up the events surrounding the raid on Zula on Sat 5th May.
Basically on the night involved I was at Zula and had made some sweeps of the rooms to assess the sound levels emanating from each of the rooms. I can assure you that the noise levels were not at all loud. In fact I have statements from some of the people who attended the events that will testify to this. In fact even when I asked 2 of the arresting officers if they could hear offensive levels of noise coming from Zula, they said that they could not but “it was not their arrest”. After having assessed the noise levels inside the building I then went out onto the street to see if the sound was audible from the there. It was not. I also took a walk down the road to The Tudor hotel and was happy that there was no sound coming from Zula. I then went back to the club. Now previously the police have been out to Zula and cited noise complaints and issued warnings but in spite of our best efforts they have consistently refused to divulge to even our Attorney and Acoustics engineer,( whose job is specifically to ensure that such things do not occur) any information as to whom the complainant is or their location. We have since been told that it is another business who is the complainant but that is all that is being said.
On arriving back at the club I went up to the upfront bar which is located at the front of the building to once again satisfy myself that the levels were sound and I left so satisfied. When I went back down to the front door I was told by my head of security that the police were coming. I immediately suspected that they were coming to Zula with the express purpose of uplifting the equipment. I reached this conclusion because earlier in the week I had received a call from Assistant chief Nathan Ladergourdie informing me that he had received a complaint and personally gone to “the apartment” to assess the noise levels. I tried to ascertain where exactly this alleged apartment was and how given that we are not the only club in the area, he was able to categorically say that Zula was to blame for any noise nuisance. He replied to me that he has been in the game a long time and that his ears were capable of making such a distinction. I am assuming he has Extra sensory perceptive powers of some nature and to say that I find such skills impressive would be an understatement. He then informed me that given should he have any further complaints he would confiscate my equipment under powers granted to the police under a by-law relating to streets & public places (GN6469/2007). Now under this law the police are still required to follow due process otherwise what it amounts to is that we are living in a police state whereby if a police official decides that he does not like the colour of someone’s shoes, or maybe gets a tad offended by their hairstyle, then he can basically use the law to then close that persons business down without that person having any recourse to the law that said official is tasked with upholding. I don’t know about you but this very notion sends shivers all over my body let alone up and down the spine.
So I then proceeded to go outside and close the door. Ladergourdie then approached me stating that he was here to confiscate my equipment. I asked him for a warrant to which he replied that he did not need one. I then asked him under whose authority he was acting to which he replied his own. I told my staff to shut the gate. I proceeded then to explain to him that as the owner of the business I was not giving him permission to enter my establishment but that as the police they would probably enter anyway and that this was their prerogative. The words owner of the business barely got out of my mouth when I was manhandled up against a car and arrested. My security head asked the police to be a bit gentler so he got arrested as well. The police then removed my keys from my neck and forced their way into the premises whereby they confiscated my equipment.
Furthermore when we were being held in custody after expressly asking to be read my rights, I was denied access to my attorney and more importantly to my wife.
To finish I would just like to reiterate my concerns as to the behaviour of these officials. How is it possible that on the very spurious citing of a single noise complainant who is allegedly another business, the police are allowed to act in this way? Does this mean that any business can now complain about their competitors and if they know the right people in the police then they face having their livelihoods removed. Can it be possible that the police are allowed to circumvent the judicial system and become judge, jury and executioner resting in the knowledge that they and not the public will receive protection from the law? What then happens to the right of each citizen to be considered innocent before being proven guilty? As we stand at the moment my equipment is still in some secret location and I am no further forward in finding out who this mystery complainant is so for all intents and purposes I am already guilty without ever having been given a chance at representation to a judge. Now if I owned a business in a residential area and I was consistently pumping out offensive noise levels then there would maybe be some level of justification for this treatment but I own a club on long St where there are a good few clubs, some louder than others and how I am being targeted without being given any leeway to find out why then it leaves alarm bells ringing in my head.
