A Liverpool city centre bar has been allowed to reopen after a triple stabbing.
Three men were knifed outside G-Bar in the early hours of Sunday, September 20 and found in nearby Tithebarn Street with injuries that required hospital assessment.
An altercation was alleged to have taken place between those injured and another group inside the Eberle Street venue before the brutal attack took place outside.
Although three men were charged in connection with the incident, the bar’s licence was suspended by Liverpool City Council’s licensing and gambling sub-committee.
However G-Bar is again permitted to commence trading after a hearing at the Town Hall on Friday (October 16) which overturned the initial ruling on September 23.
Merseyside Police had pushed for the bar’s management to scale back its closing time to 6am in light of both the stabbing and previous other unreported incidents.
PC Nicola Ireland said that an affray had taken place involving 10 people outside the bar’s front door at 7.45am last December when door staff were ‘outnumbered’.
A bottle was also used as a weapon in March this year while security were said to have been assaulted a week later as well as a separate allegation of sexual assault.
PC Ireland said the incidents were symptomatic of ‘a culture’ of not reporting issues to police by management, who dismissed those on duty on the night of the stabbing.
But G-Bar’s representative Karl Gwynn insisted that its owners were keen to ‘admit our mistakes’ and ‘would like to move forward with this’.
New designated premises supervisor Keith Blohm also said he was keen to build a positive working relationship with police and the LGBT community ‘needs G-Bar’.
Sahir House chief executive Simon Harris also advocated for the bar’s returned operation as ‘an important part of the LGBT community and night time economy’.
Councillors reinstated G-Bar’s licence with an 8am close time with committee chair Cllr Christine Banks urging management to ‘do your duty’ and ‘protect the people’.