Inside the squatted Black Cap

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It hasn’t been a great week for property companies with interests in iconic London LGBTQ venues. At both the Black Cap and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, recent developments have done little to resolve longterm doubts over the fate of the capital’s most iconic cabaret pubs – but they have made one thing very clear. Community action has the power to put property developers on the back foot.

Scroll down for photos from inside the Black Cap as the squatters found it

Nearly eight weeks after the Black Cap’s sudden closure on April 13, its sale to new owners appears still not to have been completed. The fact that the pub regained Asset of Community Value status mere days before it was shuttered seems to have thrown a spanner in the developers’ works – as has continued community campaigning against the closure, including a weekly vigil outside its doors (one of the nine ideas I floated following the closure).

A sale could still go through but the council might be reluctant to give the go-ahead to the site’s use as anything other than an LGBTQ pub and cabaret space. Much doubt still remains.

Meanwhile, there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle over at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, which was bought last year by international property developers Immovate. Campaign group RVT Future, of which I am a member, has been trying to get listed-building status for the pub, which is believed to be the UK’s oldest LGBTQ venue, to make it harder to knock down or convert into flats or retail.

Immovate and RVT chief executive James Lindsay oppose such a move, and this week launched a petition against it. This petition asserted that if the Tavern is listed it is “highly likely” to close. Why that should be the case when dozens of pubs in listed buildings thrive was unclear, and no evidence was offered.

RVT Future put out a statement urging those who love the Tavern not to sign the petition but instead to refute the owners’ scaremongering on social media. Ongoing attempts to promote the petition have been met with just such a response (see image).

It is to be hoped that the upshot of this will be an increased interest constructive dialogue with concerned members of the community. But of course, the fact there’s no credible evidence or argument underpinning a course of action doesn’t deprive a property’s owner of the right to do it anyway. But if the RVT’s owners were thinking, ‘Well, who cares what the community thinks? We’ll close it anyway – it worked at the Black Cap’, they were in for a nasty surprise.

Because on Thursday, squatters moved in to the vacant Black Cap.

On a Section 144 form posted on the pub’s door giving notice of their arrival, the group described themselves as Camden Queer Punx 4eva and gave a phone number “to negotiate”. A rainbow flag was soon seen flying from the first-floor bar window.

The arrival of squatters at a contested site certainly changes the game. On the one hand, it sends the message that spaces should be used, not left vacant, especially at a time of acute housing shortage in the capital. On the other, it potentially puts supporters of the venue who have been working with the local council and police in a tricky position.

In any case, the development has been covered by the Evening Standard and received lots of social media attention, ensuring that the fact of the Black Cap’s closure and subsequent protests around it remain visible in the mainstream.

I visited the squatted Black Cap this afternoon and my initial impression was that, while squatting per se might present a tactical challenge to the campaign to reopen the Black Cap, in terms of complicating negotiations with the property’s owners and local authorities, these particular squatters – a group of between 15 and 20 people of mixed ages, ethnicities, nationalities and sexualities – seemed to me to be thoughtful, engaged and articulate, and to take their stewardship of the venue seriously.

The interior of the Black Cap today is not the prettiest of sights. After its closure, before the squatters’ arrival, some of the fixtures and fittings were removed, including electronic equipment, the three dozen framed portraits of drag performers, and the iconic tiled image of Mother Black Cap in the building’s foyer.

Much of the rest of the venue is intact, including the actual bars upstairs and downstairs, the stage and the toilets.The walls are mostly bare, with some signage and pictures propped against walls. There is little visible damage other than that resulting from the removal of fixtures.

During the couple of hours I spent there, the squatters mostly sat in groups, talking, drinking and smoking, some discussing past events at the Cap (a Sylvester tribute night came up) and whether it might yet reopen, others coming and going. There is talk of trying to put on shows on the stage, and inviting those campaigning for the reopening of the pub to collaborate.

“I’ve never been in a squat that was trending before,” said Rob, who has lived in a number of squats. He has, however, been to the Black Cap before. “I used to come here quite a bit,” he said.

As a queer person himself, he valued it for its history and its mere presence. “It was the only gay or queer bar left in Camden. Up here [in the first-floor Shufflewick bar] was like an old-school boozer – there’s only a few places left [in London] that go back to the 60s. You felt like you could meet people who remembered what it was like when you actually had to fight to have a gay space. You don’t feel that in G-A-Y in Soho.”

Rob works as a barman and is scathing about the decision to close a venue he believes from his own experience was thriving. “There’s no way this place wasn’t making a profit,” he says. “Up here was always packed – throw in the cabaret nights downstairs and charging for those on the door and it’s making money hand over fist. It would be hard for a place on this site not to.”

What about concerns that squatting might harm the venue’s prospects of reopening? Sarah, also a longterm squatter, insists they intend to treat the interior with respect. “We won’t damage anything,” she says. “We squatted a building in Borough that was listed, inside and outside, with lots of precious wood. We didn’t leave a scratch.”

There might be social events planned, she says, but not ones she thinks are likely to result in damage. “We could hold a squat party but this isn’t the place for it. But we might want to hold a show like ones they used to do here.”

“If we don’t trash the place, we can’t make it worse for [campaigners],” says Rob. He’s well aware that irresponsible squatting can cause such harm. “If you take out the wood and fittings, it makes it much harder to reopen as a pub,” he says.

Sarah says part of the reason behind their action is to draw attention to gentrification. “We were [squatting] in Marine Ices – they were serving people for 80 years. This place was serving people for 50 years. One day, people will leave their house and find there’s nothing but luxury flats.”

She thinks those who fail to perceive what she considers to be the common causes underlying recent closures of independent venues – the pursuit of profit at the expense of social needs – are kidding themselves, and that criticism of squatting is misguided. “Ignorance is great but those small shopkeepers [who complain] might be next.”

What do the squatters think are the chances of the Cap reopening as it was? “It’s hard to have much hope for places like this until the councils stand up and say it’s a moral issue,” says Rob. “They don’t close places like this because they don’t make money. They close them because they can rinse more out of them as property development.”

Sarah thinks their arrival took the Cap’s owners by surprise. “A couple of guys came [after we moved in] – owners or managers. They seemed confused. They brought the police and the police advised them to get a solicitor.” Once they do, Sarah says, speaking from experience, “they could get us out of here in four days – three days to get a court hearing then 24 hours notice [to leave].” The mention of “negotiation” on the Section 144 form is not, she says, about extracting a fee from the owners in exchange for a quick exit. “We don’t want any money from them”.

Whatever the length of the group’s stay, Rob notes that it has set a precedent. “If it’s been squatted once, it’ll be squatted again. Nothing good can come of leaving it empty.”

However the situation at the Black Cap develops, it has already demonstrated two things: that even sites left vacant can still cause headaches and generate controversy; and that property developers can’t take it for granted that they will always get their way.

At both the Black Cap and the RVT, there’s still everything to play for.

More pictures from inside the Black Cap as the squatters found it

All photographs: Ben Walters