Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
11 NOVEMBER 2004
MR RICHARD
HOLMAN AND
MR GARY
SMART
Q240 Mr Challen: I can speak from my
own experience of putting up posters during election periods and
by-elections are notorious for the amount of posters that go up,
but in our case they all have by law to bear an imprint. That
could act as a deterrent to people who want to put up posters
without saying on whose behalf it is published. It is difficult
to conceal on whose behalf your posters will be published but
the printer's name has to be on it and the publisher's name has
to be on it. Is that something that you think ought to be more
widely employed, the idea of putting that information on the bottom
of posters so that people can see exactly who is responsible for
each stage of that poster's production and distribution?
Mr Holman: If there was a penalty
regime that was being implemented quite strongly it would be a
bigger incentive not to fly-post. As Mr Smart has said, in our
case, and no doubt in other such cases, we are used as a venue
by other people and it comes back to the point you were making
about allowance of the use of our brand and our logo in the area
that you are talking about.
Q241 Mr Challen: I do not know if you
are familiar with the lifestyle provisions in the Proceeds of
Crime Act which means that assets of directors of companies, for
example, could be seized as well as fines being levied. Do you
favour that kind of approach? Do you agree with me that more of
a deterrent would be available there? Would you agree that that
is an appropriate deterrent for addressing the problem?
Mr Holman: As a director of the
company I would have to say it is rather a heavy reaction and
would only be appropriate in cases of a continuous failure to
observe a more measured response. I see it as a fairly extreme
penalty that might be necessary to back up anything else.
Q242 Chairman: Is not one of the problems
that, in your business with your brand, getting into trouble with
the law is quite a positive thing?
Mr Smart: No.
Q243 Chairman: Is it not quite cool to
be bad?
Mr Holman: No, I do not think
that is the image at all. That is certainly not why we fly-post.
There may be a slightly fine line between being seen to be slightly
underground and cutting edge, but
Q244 Chairman: You have a subsidiary
called Decadence.
Mr Holman: Decadance.
Q245 Chairman: Oh, I beg your pardon.
Mr Holman: It is not a brand name
that we use much. It was somebody's bright idea of a name for
a company. No, it is certainly not breaking the law. As a club
we have always been very strong in the drugs area, which has been
one of the biggest concerns in clubbing, and we helped the Home
Office write the new rules for that. It is not part of the Ministry's
brief to try to be seen to be sneaky law-breakers.
Q246 Paul Flynn: Mr Smart, do you think
that the Ministry of Sound fly-posters enhance the beauty of the
urban landscape?
Mr Smart: Probably not, no.
Q247 Paul Flynn: You seem to be suggesting
that you are a tasteful law-breaker in that you only allow your
fly-posters to go up in a nice orderly way and they are of high
aesthetic quality. That is not what you are saying?
Mr Smart: I am saying they are
in as much as hundreds of banks on the high street are or car
showrooms are. They are part of the fabric of society. If they
are up and they are not on stupid locations then they add something
to society.
Q248 Paul Flynn: You are a cheerful,
happy law-breaker, you have just told us. You are happy to be
a law-breaker?
Mr Smart: No. I am under the impression
that where we are putting them is allowable by the fact that we
are not going to be pulled up or fined.
Q249 Paul Flynn: That is not true. You
have been fined under the byelaw
Mr Smart: Recently?
Q250 Paul Flynn: Yes, recently.
Mr Smart: We have reacted to those
situations.
Q251 Paul Flynn: When you were called
by Westminster Council to see them to try and ameliorate your
behaviour, which people do with law-breakers rather than taking
them to court, you failed to attend the meeting.
Mr Smart: Who, me?
Q252 Paul Flynn: Your organisation did.
Ministry of Sound failed to attend when they were called by Westminster
Council on 9 December 2002. You were subsequently fined with costs
of £352.
Mr Smart: I am sorry; I was not
aware that we were supposed to attend any meeting. We have always
supported the police and the council in things like this if we
are asked.
Q253 Paul Flynn: But you cheerfully break
the law. Mr Holman, I find it fascinating listening to your evidence.
I do not want to be unpleasant to you but it is refreshing to
hear what Edward Heath described as "the unacceptable face
of capitalism". You describe your customers and their lifestyles
in sub-moronic terms, you have clear disdain for your own customers
and you make it clear that you will happily go on breaking the
law and littering the urban landscape as long as it does not hit
you in your most erogenous zone, which is your wallet, and nothing
else seems to matter. It is all about your profit. If the fines
are not big enough you continue to do exactly what you want to
do. Is that a fair description of what you said just now?
Mr Holman: No, I do not think
it is at all.
Q254 Paul Flynn: What about on the point
that you say you have no environmental policy?
Mr Holman: I did not say that.
Q255 Paul Flynn: The environment does
not matter at all? It does not appear on your landscape at all?
Mr Holman: I do not think that
was what I was saying. I said we do have an environmental policy.
We do not have a written environmental policy but we are very
clear that
Q256 Paul Flynn: It is a gleam in someone's
eye, is it, the environmental policy? You say that no-one is employed
doing it.
Mr Holman: I have already said
that in terms of cleaning up the area round the club, which is
one of the most sensitive points of London so the council will
be concerned about it, we have made big efforts to ensure that
that is dealt with.
Mr Smart: We have been doing that
for some years.
Q257 Paul Flynn: I am another member
of this committee who has seen your posters or only knows about
you because of your posters. They have suddenly disappeared very
recently. The result when they disappeared was not that there
was nothing left. The walls that were decorated with these are
still a mess. Although it will clear away in time there will still
be remnants of them and the place will still look like a slum.
What is your view on that? We cannot identify that your posters
used to be there. Many of us have passed them on a daily basis
coming in to Westminster. Are you happy about that? Your clean-up
is just to eliminate your name so you are not blamed for it.
Mr Smart: The areas where we are
pulled up we do not advertise again and the areas where we want
to continue and will continue until such time as we cannot are
the areas that we are led to believe are sites that are owned
by the poster companies.
Q258 Paul Flynn: But the only thing that
is going to get across to you or has got across to you is this
recent bad publicity about fly-posting. You were not worried about
breaking the law. Because it is not an indictable offence you
cannot be got at and there it is. Eventually pressure from the
public stating what you were doing has got through to you. The
other thing that would get through to you would be if the law
hit you in your pocket. That is the message that you are giving
us with your evidence this morning, is it not?
Mr Holman: You used the term "happy
law-breakers".
Q259 Paul Flynn: You seem very cheerful
to me. I do not see any sign of guilt about it.
Mr Holman: We have made it clear
wherever we have perhaps not focused sufficiently on the full
terms of the law but we have tried to a certain extent to work
within the law. I doubt if anybody in this room sticks rigidly
to every line of every law. Fly-posting, as Mr Smart says, has
been going for a long time. We know that it is illegal. There
are many other things that happen in the area that are illegal.
We have cut back very substantially. The council can come to us
at any time; any council can.
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