An imposing pub in the angle of two roads in the Harehills district on the north side of the city. It closed in 2004 and has served for many years as an ethnic supermarket. It had a colourful history that even merits its own Wikipedia page. Its patrons were reportedly the inspiration for Chumbawamba's song “Tubthumping.”
The wiki page for the pub doesn't say why the pub closed.
ReplyDeleteIn July 2004 over 100 police officers raided the pub and seized "crack cocaine, cannabis and numerous weapons".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/3899109.stm
The wiki for "Harehills" says that these weapons were guns.
Stories about the raid have disappeared from the websites of both the Yorkshire Post
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/man-leaps-through-raided-pub-s-window-1-2546742
and the Yorkshire Evening Post
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/100-in-pub-drug-raid-1-2267740.
I seem to remember that the guns were originally reported to be MAC-10 submachine guns but my memory may be faulty.
I went in one night when I was living in the B&Bs nearby in about 2001 - it was a Sunday night and some sort of karaoke was going on I was the only white bloke in there so thought I better finish my pint and go!
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