Dear readers — when Sham, the owner of Deadbeat bar in Stirchley, applied for a licence to extend opening hours from midnight until 1am two months ago, he didn’t expect the request to be controversial. But then the disapproving comments from local residents and neighbouring businesses rolled in. The seemingly innocuous application had touched a nerve — one that has recently been exposed in a spate of frustrated Instagram posts and stories by some prominent figures in the area’s bustling hospitality scene. As the postcode has become more popular, they claimed, instances of vandalism have gone up — and later opening hours will only encourage more of the same.
Long time local Dan Cave went to get the full story. What he discovered wasn’t just a battle about when to call last orders, but a fight over the future of Stirchley itself. Before that, your Brum in Brief.
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Brum in Brief
🥊 Talks between Birmingham City Council and striking bin workers have completely broken down, the BBC has reported, with council leader John Cotton saying the authority has "reached the absolute limit" of what it can offer the union. Now, some lorry drivers are also at risk of compulsory redundancy. According to the article, Cotton said the council had negotiated in good faith but the union had rejected all offers the authority has made. At the time of writing, Unite the union has not made a statement. Commenting on the outcome, Birmingham Conservative leader Robert Alden said, "time and again over the last 6 months we have called on the Council to place firm deadlines on offers made to the unions rather than allow constant moving of the goal posts. The Council needs to get the service back up and running, the bins emptied and the streets cleaned."
💰 Speaking of the council — and strikes — Alden has raised concerns about the possibility of more industrial action around equal pay. Last month, the union GMB announced that progress has been "too slow" and they are balloting around 3,000 workers to find out how they want to respond. At a meeting of the full council on Tuesday, BirminghamLive reports, Alden said the city now faces “not one but two strikes” and “it’s time that the leader stopped pretending that they’re tackling the issue”. Cotton responded that the council was working “with pace” with trade unions, including GMB, to begin settling claims by the end of this year.
Quick Hits
🚨 Two people were taken to hospital after a 4am car crash in Stirchley yesterday and police have arrested a 39-year-old man on suspicion of driving without due care and attention, and driving while unfit through drink or drugs. He was also taken to hospital, reports BirminghamLive.
✈️ Birmingham Airport is scrapping its 100ml liquid limit for carry on items, reports The Independent. The restriction has been in place since 2006 but, as of this month, has been lifted both here and at Edinburgh Airport.
In today’s story, Dan Cave goes on a night out in Stirchley, and comes home with the inside scoop on a recent rift in the community.
On the longest day of the year, I had an evening out in Stirchley that was painfully on brand for an area that was recently voted the Sunday Times’ Best Place to Live in the Midlands.
It started off with me reading in a sunny local park. Friends called me over to the high street’s newest suntrap beer garden, The Den, for cold cans of craft lager, before we moved to another bar, Deadbeat, for stomach-lining NY-style pizza slices. Then we headed to the British Oak to get a proximity buzz from their jam-packed outside area. Living in B30, I was back home and in bed for 11. It was the type of cool night out many of the independent Stirchley businesses take pride in offering: hyper-local, multi-locational and ending at a so-called sensible time. But behind the cosmopolitan grub and imported beers, not everyone is singing from the same branding playbook.
In May, Deadbeat submitted a late license application to the council, hoping to extend their serving hours to 1am. The submission sparked immediate opposition. Some residents made comments on the application about noise and the potential for bad behaviour. Neighbouring independent businesses suggested the late license might be negative for the area. Mary Locke, the local Labour councillor, was also opposed. In the same period, long-term Stirchley bar Cork & Cage took to social media to decry late licensing after they refused service to a drunk who then damaged their frontage. Shortly after, the license application was withdrawn. But not before the episode revealed further misalignment among local businesses, as well as residents and punters, about what Stirchley’s future should be.
Stirchley is broadly seen as a rare successful area for nightlife businesses in the second city, largely powered by a surge of chic bars and restaurants. "This is a good thing," says Locke. But the gentrified suburb hardly offers late late night entertainment. Midnight on the weekend is about as late as a drink can be bought. It is, historically and presently, a residential suburb after all.
But now Stirchley’s lateness is up for debate. Sham, the man who brought Deadbeat to Stirchley in the summer of 2023, was behind the recent application for a 1 am license. The bar is open until midnight on the weekend but Sham tells the Dispatch they only advertise it as open to 11 pm, giving them flexibility to control customers but also to stay open later if customers are having a good time. The late license, he says, could allow them to put on one-off events critical to survival in a difficult hospitality landscape. "Look at Wildcat and Tilt [a recently closed city centre bar]…they’ve sadly gone under," he adds. "It’s often the hours between 10pm and 12am that count for us…and we think it would be great to keep a crowd in a little longer if the vibe is right."
It’s a flexible approach. And, let's face it, Deadbeat's hardly going to transform overnight into something resembling the all-hours strip club in From Dusk till Dawn. However, some of Deadbeat’s neighbours remain uncomfortable about the possibility of Stirchley becoming more nocturnal — and their biggest fear is that if one bar gets to stay open later, that will set a precedent for potential newcomers.
Chloe, who founded seasonal small plates restaurant Verbena in 2020, directly opposite Deadbeat, was one of those who opposed the application. Emphasising that she has no ill will towards Deadbeat — "it’s a fucking struggle at the moment [in hospitality]," — she worries about the potential for rowdier behaviour at the weekend, sharing concerns about Stirchley being a destination night out and the need to balance business goals with resident needs. "I’m not against late licenses in general, but as it's a premise license, even if Deadbeat were responsible, would the next people be?"
At the other end of high street, Cork & Cage bar, run by Chloe’s partner Richard went ‘Stirchley viral’ for a long Instagram post in June, following the damage to their bar by a disgruntled drinker. It was an essay-of-sorts, posted during the license set to, musing on whether he should accept his part in attracting drinkers to the area but also one that pondered where the area he so clearly cares about goes next. "When an area is on the up, it doesn’t just bring more people, it brings a different kind of crowd," he wrote. "Maybe Stirchley has enough big boozers for now, maybe the existing ones, as wonderful as they all are, don’t need to be applying for extended 2 am licenses."
Richard, a Stirchley resident, tells me that he’s concerned about late licenses being a potential key factor in changing the area. He’s proud of not getting any noise complaints over the time he’s been here. "Late licences don't cause a negative shift on their own but they can be a key player," he says, adding that he believes that can lead to noise issues, violence and "an erosion of what makes places like Stirchley liveable".
He is chastened by the experience of running a bar in gentrified Digbeth in the 2010s. "[There] we had late-night themed bars, absentee owners with a focus solely on profit, and hedge fund-backed mini-chains…Stirchley’s current hospitality scene works because it’s small-scale, community-minded, and well-balanced."
It’s hardly like Deadbeat represents an insurgent force of All Bar Ones and Slug & Lettuces. Even if concerns exist around what might come next. It only has a handful of staff, and Sham says it’s a business built on emotional over-the-bar chats and culture-focused events. "We take our reputation and relationships seriously," he says.
Not least, he says, he stayed up late reading residents’ worries. He says he took their concerns about potential customer behaviour and noise seriously, but he feels that some opposition comes from an in-group of those who simply set up shop in Stirchley before him or who rely less on later evening trade. "I feel we’ve been tagged a bit as being this bad guy," he says, adding the Stirchley scene can feel like a bit of a closed circle at times. "It can feel a bit snooty."
