Heaven club owner: The West End has to stand up to rip-off landlords together
London’s Heaven club is facing closure – its owner Jeremy Joseph tells Adam Bloodworth about the ‘stress’ of fighting to save it
Hidden away in the tunnels below Charing Cross station, four nights a week 1,600 Londoners meet at Heaven to dance to strobe displays and cavorting drag queens. There’s a huge dance floor and – unusually for clubs – air conditioning. Heaven is easily the biggest nightlife venue left in the West End, and certainly one of the capital’s best, but a huge rental hike means it faces closure.
Opened in 1979 as a haven for the LGBTQ community, some of the first AIDS deaths were from among its patrons (Terrence Higgins died on its dance floor), and everyone from Madonna to Adele have performed there with a plastic pint glass in hand, doing homecoming shows with an intimacy bigger venues could never match. During the pandemic the venue even opened as a vaccination centre. Heaven has become a historical landmark: but landlords The Arch Company have raised the rent by £320,000 a year, which club runner Jeremy Joseph says puts the future of one of London’s most prolific and high-tech nightlife spaces at risk.
If I put one of these businesses on the market, which I may have to do, it’s very likely that a non LGBTQ company will buy it. That means another independent LGBT business is gone
“They did it on a Saturday,” says Joseph, who is curled up with his dog Jacob on a cream sofa backstage before a Monday night show. Nearby, four drag queens are applying make-up. Jeremy has run Heaven club since 2009. “It just shows they don’t care about mental health,” adds Joseph. “Imagine 4 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. ‘You owe us £320,000 extra,” knowing we couldn’t talk to a lawyer or anyone. That’s the way they work.
“We are going to make an announcement about the stress it is causing,” he continues. “It’s a waiting game, a very stressful process. If they win it’s a backdated amount. We can’t budget for this because you can’t increase pricing for an unknown amount. You have no idea what the arbitrator will say.”
It’s sombre that this comes amid an incredibly challenging period for the capital’s nightlife. Over the last two decades nightclubs in our city have almost halved in number, according to research from the London Assembly. If the landlords win in the courts, will Joseph be forced to sell?
“I don’t want to answer that at the moment,” he says. “I can’t think like that at the moment. We have to take every day as it comes, get the result of the arbitrator and then we decide what we’re going to do from there. But this isn’t just about here. The result of this will affect everybody else, other hospitality venues. That’s why I went public with lawyers, but in the end I thought, why am I dealing with this on my own? Struggling with this? If other venues stood up and fought as well, if they fought to keep their rent down, that weakens the landlord in the arbitration process.”
Joseph believes power in numbers may help explain to the courts how he isn’t alone. “I’ve had people reach out to me and say they’re in the same boat, in the same situation. Well why don’t they go public? If more tenants came forward and spoke out then this shows how bad of a situation this really is. I know there’s another LGBTQ venue in the same boat as me with The Arch Co but they won’t go public and I don’t get why they won’t.”
The Heaven club was granted a form of protected status in 2020 that supposedly means the venue’s identity as an LGBTQ safe space is enshrined, but Joseph believes the status is “kind of bullshit, to be really honest.”
“You can call it LGBT, you can try your hardest to keep it, but if I have to sell it and somebody else comes in, a venue can lose its LGBT status. It’s only LGBT if you keep it LGBT. It’s down to the people who own a venue, and how they run a venue that actually protects it. A blue plaque is not going to change anything. The landlord wouldn’t give a f**k if this stays LGBTQ or not. They don’t care. At the end of the day, if they get what they want, that’s the protection gone. If I put one of these businesses on the market, which I may have to do, it’s very likely that a non LGBTQ company will buy it. That means another independent LGBT business is gone.”
Joseph fears there aren’t enough LGBTQ buyers in the market, a result of the ongoing cost of living crisis that also means clubbers are drinking more before they go out and saving the money they used to spend behind the bar which has an effect on profit margins.
In a statement to the CityAM The Arch Company said: “Heaven is a long term and valued customer and we have been working closely with them to reach an agreement on the market rent for their premises. Unfortunately, we have not been able to agree this between ourselves and so an independent third party has now been appointed to help resolve.”
Despite the struggle, for the first time in its 44-year history Heaven became accessible to disabled people this past year, a stride towards the future.
Joseph has “dreams” of securing the venue’s charitable status to help further ensure its safety for generations to come. But plans are “put on hold” until after the legal process is over, which is being held up by “a quibble” despite the process now being in its tenth month. (The rent hike was proposed in September 2023.) “We’re moving forward, there are other plans, but things are put on hold until this is resolved,” says Joseph.
The charitable status would ensure the venue remains a club, but also is able “to look after LGBT people forevermore,” says Joseph, his dog Jacob lying flamboyantly on a pillow on the sofa opposite. “That’s my goal.”