A fashion designer’s bid to open a restaurant in Hainault Business Park has been rejected due to fears it would attract “crime, disorder and public nuisance”.

Kolade Folarin, 38, sought permission to serve food and alcohol at BanKola Cafe and Restaurant, in Fowler Road, until 12am Monday to Thursday and until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays.

However, councillors on Redbridge’s licensing committee last month found Folarin’s plan to run a restaurant lacked “commercial reality” and was more likely to be a “drinking establishment or nightclub”.

The committee also voiced suspicions that his application was secretly made on behalf of Mujahid Ali, 40, who until recently ran an “illegal shisha bar” called Level at the same address.

Ali is the leaseholder for the property but is no longer able to hold a licence after a “lengthy history” of issues, including disturbing neighbours and convictions for breaking indoor smoking laws last year and in 2018.

In a decision published late last week, the committee agreed that a rental agreement between Ali and Folarin, charging £10,000 a month, was clearly “not produced by a lawyer”.

The committee wrote: “We conclude on the balance of probabilities that the proposed restaurant is not the genuine business of the premises.

“The use of the premises for unlicensed music events and shisha smoking has been a source of crime, disorder and public nuisance in the past.

“Nothing on the evidence we have heard indicates that it is now genuinely proposed to use the premises for any other purpose than the previous one.”

Folarin has a fashion business called BanKola Brand, based in Essex, and said he has never run licensed premises before.

The committee concluded he did not have the “character and experience” to be able to “successfully disassociate the premises” from the crime and disorder that occurred when Ali ran it.

This was despite Folarin’s attempt to compromise with the committee by shortening restaurant opening hours to close at 11pm Monday to Thursday and 11:30 on Fridays and Saturdays.

A key concern for the committee was Ali’s links to the venue, including an office and bedroom on the site and Folarin’s evidence that Ali would “remain involved until he had been paid”.

When police licensing officers visited the venue earlier this year ahead of BanKola’s application, Ali was present and “engaged” with their questions, adding to suspicions.

The committee wrote: “​Given that Mr Ali appears to have an office and accommodation which may or may not be his home at the premises, and is the present leaseholder, and the lengthy proposed opening and licensing hours, we do not consider that we can lawfully bar Mr Ali from the premises through a licence condition.”

In response to a separate failed application for BanKola to host several one-off events at the venue in August, Met Police licensing officer PC Matt Brown alleged that Ali hosted several late-night raves during the pandemic.

PC Brown also submitted evidence of violent incidents linked to the venue, including a stabbing in the car park in August 2020 and a bottle smashed over a man’s head in January this year.

Nearby residents have also complained of regular “loud and thumping” music from the Shisha bar lasting until the early hours of the morning, committee papers show.

On 16th August, Ali appeared at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court and admitted one count of failing to stop a person from smoking at Level on 9th December 2021.

He was fined £750, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £75 and to pay £2,895 in prosecution costs to Redbridge Council.