A CAMPAIGN against the closure of one of Scotland's leading nightclubs and arts venues has secured over 20,000 signatures in just three days.
The Save The Arches petition was heading towards 25,000 names yesterday, in what appears to be another public campaign against Glasgow City Council.
It has been signed by prominent figures from the arts, as well as leading DJs and members of the public.
The city's licensing board ruled venue was to shut from midnight from Friday following the third attempt by Police Scotland to have it closed in a year.
The force cited a litany of drugs finds, with the venue claiming it was being punished for alerting the police to the hauls.
It is understood that in recent weeks two officers and one city council licensing standards officer visited the venue over concerns it was advertising 'Buckfast Burgers' in its cafe.
The venue, which was promoting the gimmick on its Facebook page, was told that if it was to comply with the law it would be required to serve the burgers at their price for 72 hours.
A meeting of the Arches board of directors will be held this evening, where it will be decided if a legal challenge will be mounted against the licensing board's decision.
Police Scotland had previously failed in an attempt to have The Arches closed last year following the drugs-related death of 17-year-old Regan McColl after it agreed to implementing a number of measures and the board agreed it had taken all the steps it could.
Police also complained the club was forcing a drain on its resources.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article