14/07/2024
As previous owners of Riley’s bar , there is no one more frustrated with our current situation than us .
We are currently the owners of the building not the business… Riley’s ,
The leasehold ie the business has been owned now by a friend and previous employee for almost 2years now .
Unfortunately a severe drop in annual footfall has left this person with some quite substantial debts , this has had an effected her health etc and left her with no other choice that to close the business down .
That said we the freeholders not the current owners of Riley’s business, are now looking at debts of over £30,000 as Pendle borough council have decided (post Covid)to chase us for previous business rates which were at the time free ,we currently fighting this ridiculous decision and as you can imagine this has caused a great deal of stress and anxiety.
We have no business and no staff etc etc , we have obviously assessed our situation and applied for a license to re open Riley’s hopefully for the blues and for the foreseeable future .
As many of you know as previous owners of Riley’s we loved the blues and the acts that played for us , we worked tirelessly to put on the best Independent music venue we could and the crowds that turned out were fantastic. Thankyou !! We also payed and played many local music acts in Riley’s bar on a regular basis all year round and enjoyed some great local talent.
Colne bid are now in charge of all the fringe acts , we have NO SAY in who plays and when there on , we also had endless arguments with the licensing department regarding the type of music , times and the volumes we were allowed to play the acts .
As we do not even know if we will even have a licence or staff for the blues thought it was better to inform colne bid that we are not hosting any music acts , we felt this was the sensible decision as we didn’t want to let anyone down at the last minute .
As I said no one is more upset and frustrated than myself and my wife !!!! Deborah and myself apologise if we’ve let anyone down xx
God bless Bonny Colne !!!!
