A NIGHTCLUB owner says that he is working with police to improve the reputation of his venue, which has been linked to 111 emergency calls in the first nine months of this year.

Angelo Rossi has been running Angelo's nightclub in Fleet Street for the past 25 years, and says much of the trouble attributed to his club is as a result of revellers passing through the area.

He is in the midst of finalising arrangements for an outdoor smoking area, and is planning to introduce a hot food menu to help soak up the alcohol after a night on the town.

Angelo's has been associated with 85 crimes since July 5 last year.

A licence review meeting has been scheduled for the venue, which was one of the first in Swindon to get a 24-hour drinking licence, and is set to take place on October 18.

Mr Rossi said: "We are trying to collaborate with the police and everybody involved to make the downtown area the place to come to.

"This place has mainly been used as a landmark when there is trouble.

"If you are here, in the street and call for help from the emergency services, you say I'm at Angelo's' although you could be in the car park and not actually here.

"I was closed for two months for refurbishment and I saw in the Adver that there was a big fight at Angelo's - but I was closed.

"We all want people to feel safe and to have less trouble for the customers, the police and for ourselves."

At the review next week there is the potential for Angelo's to be stripped of its licence and be forced to operate more restricted hours.

It could even be forced to closed like Mbargo in Fleet Street.

Swindon police licensing officer Geoff Hicks completed the application for the review and wrote: "During the latter months of 2005 and the first three months of 2006 the premises of Angelo's came to the police's attention due to the number of incidents which were considered to be in breach of the licensing objectives."

Mr Rossi says that he hopes to have a meeting with Wiltshire police to work on initiatives to improve matters, and has engaged a specialist licensing legal team to help him.

9:30amtoday Print Email this Share this: Digg del.icio.us Furl reddit Facebook Yahoo! What's this?

What are these links for?

If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.

At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.

Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.