Thursday: We went into a bar to remove the sound equipment today, only the second time that we have had to do this for commercial premises. Despite numerous warnings to the bar management, loud bass music from the bar had kept people awake in the flats above last Friday night, witnessed by a colleague, and so this morning 4 of us from the Noise Team met outside the bar, along with a policeman, alarm engineer, sound engineer, and locksmith, and a large council van. Some chaps taking away rubbish told us that the owner would be there in 5 minutes, and so we waited. Sure enough a chap turned up with keys, but I didn’t recognise him – as the “case officer” I thought I knew all of the management. He wouldn’t identify himself, and refused to unlock the premises until I asked the locksmith to get to work. As the locksmith’s drill approached the door lock he decided to let us in, although not until he had been threatened with arrest for obstruction, and even then the locksmith had to use bolt cutters to deal with a padlock. I had the task of trying to keep him calm and out of the way while my colleagues noted details of the sound equipment, photographed it, disconnected it, and removed it to the van; 27 items including 19 speakers. The sons of the licensee turned up next, which resulted in more arguing and shouting, and I was relieved when the licensee walked in a few minutes later. She had firm words with her sons, who promptly calmed down a bit. No-one argues with Mum in public. The first chap turned out to be her husband. We all sat down, with the various pieces of sound system being carried away behind us, and she accepted the situation, admitting that she had not been on the premises on Friday night.
We removed the equipment to our secure store – this time I had to help with the fetching and carrying, which was a shame because we had to carry the stuff up some stairs! The biggest speakers stayed on the ground floor. The van broke down when we tried to leave, and we had to walk the mile or so back to the office. I am glad that the van hadn’t let us down earlier – I don’t think that the bar management would have pushed the van for us.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
