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From the
https://www.theguardian.com, 9 July, 2014.
Job Centre bar faces backlash from locals in south London.
Owners of bar converted from former job centre accused of flaunting
'ironic gentrification' in one of poorer parts of capital.
A former job centre in south London that has been converted into an
upmarket bar of the same name is facing a backlash after local residents
and online campaigners condemned it as insulting and in poor taste.
The "Job Centre" bar in Deptford, which promises upmarket pub food in an
atmosphere of "quirky design features inspired by its function as a
place that once served the unemployed", found itself at the centre of a
social media storm as people accused the owners of flaunting "ironic
gentrification" in an area that remains one of the poorer parts of the
capital. The closure of the Deptford job centre in November 2010 had
been contentious, with local councillors and residents fighting a
campaign to keep it open to help tackle high levels of deprivation and
unemployment.
Richard Simcox, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, who was
involved in the fight against the job centre closure, said the decision
to use the building's background for publicity was "horrendous".
He said: "We were very involved in the campaign to prevent the closure
of the job centre because it is an area of high unemployment. We
campaigned hard at the time to keep it open, it was a very
well-supported campaign from a wide-cross section of people in the local
area. Unfortunately we lost as it was one of the first to job centres to
fall victim to the government's new measures.
"Now we see it has been turned into a hipster bar called the Job Centre,
using the fact it used to be a job centre as part of its promotion. It
is just grossly insulting that they are inviting people to go and enjoy
themselves with an ironic nod and wink that this was once a place for
poor people."
He added: "The poorer people who used to use this as a place to find
work are now being priced out of areas like Deptford, so to make a
feature of the kind of public service that the job centre used to
provide is outrageous and in very poor taste."
An open letter from local resident Jane Elliott, on behalf of campaign
group Lewisham People Before Profit, took a similar line, calling on the
bar to change its name on the basis that "the current name sends an
extremely insulting and profoundly negative message about the role of
your establishment in the neighbourhood and your view of the majority of
the people who live there."
It continued: "The bar's name and its interior design suggest that you
want potential clientele to understand that your bar is for the new
people moving into Deptford, for whom job centres are a joke, and not
the existing residents of Deptford, for whom job centres are often a
necessity … we encourage you to rethink this unnecessarily divisive and
repulsive message."
Walking past the bar as it opened Stephen Williams, 31, said: "I'm on
jobseeker's allowance and I find it offensive. People think it's an
actual job centre – it's a very insensitive name. They should change
their name."
Carol Brown, 50, who lives nearby, agreed: "It is insensitive, it is not
right at all. I've seen lots of people do a double take when they saw it
today. In this area, there are lots of people who still need a job and
so this bar should have a different name."
Susan Ball, 57, added: "When I first saw it I was very unhappy because I
thought that after all that money and effort they spent closing down the
actual job centre, they'd just brought it back. But when I realised it
was a pub, my main disappointment is that they've chosen a name that
isolates it from the local community and that's a real shame."
Others on Twitter took to condemning the establishment as "callous" and
"disgraceful", while Fiona Maree tweeted at the owners: "Bloody hell @antic_london
– I take it none of you have ever had to use a job centre? It's not fun
I assure you."
However, the Job Centre bar defended their position and took to social
media to address the complaints, tweeting: "Apologies for the offence
caused, I can assure you that wasn't our intention. We are not laughing
at the unemployed nor an elitist place … I intend to run a good decent
pub".
Max Alderman, director of Antic Collective, which runs over 34 bars and
pubs across London including the Job Centre, also defended the name.
He said: "We've got a number of pubs and generally we take over pubs
with an established name. We name them after what was in or around them
and this pub used to be a job centre. Pubs are also where people
sometimes find work and we employ over 700 people and encourage people
in the local area to seek employment here. We are not trying to belittle
or annoy anybody."
Dave Plummer, a spokesman for the Lewisham Green party, said the pub
served only to highlight the growing inequality in the area.
He said: "While we can see the humour in the "Job Centre" pub it is in
very poor taste. Lewisham is one of London's most deprived boroughs,
with an estimated 5% of employees here not even paid the minimum wage,
yet we are seeing developments being built for professionals while rents
rocket and social housing stagnates."
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