Fast food police: Caribbean takeaway closed down for opening too close to schools

The hit squad had prepared their raid long in advance.
At 10am eight police officers, some in anti-stab vests, joined three council employees on the doorstep of the Bamboo Joint takeaway.
Their mission? To stamp out the practice of selling jerk chicken within 400 metres of a secondary school.

Shut down: Police officers guard the Bamboo Joint takeaway in Leytonstone after it was closed yesterday for opening up too close to schools
Yesterday, the Jamaican cafe in Leytonstone, East London, became the first takeaway in the country to be given a closure order under guidelines banning the sale of fast food near educational establishments.

Its owners were given three days to shut up shop.
They were informed by Waltham Forest Council that their small premises, on a busy high street, was not only within 400 metres of a secondary school but also within 200 metres of a primary school and 100 metres from a public park.
The action is intended to combat child obesity by reducing the number of shops selling unhealthy fast food near schools and parks.
Co-owner Maureen Farrell, who opened the Bamboo Joint six weeks ago, said she felt she was being victimised by a council which was acting 'completely over the top'.

'They told us that it's because we are too near a school, but this street is full of takeaways selling fish and chips and burgers.

Enforcement officers serve the takeaway with a closure order for breaching orders about fast food outlets near schools, parks and leisure centres
'It's ridiculous. They just arrived here this morning and told us they were shutting us down. It looks like we are terrorists or something.

'But all we are doing is selling good food. It's not even unhealthy. We sell Jamaican-style rice and peas, and jerk chicken.

'It is not greasy stuff. And we hardly have any schoolchildren in here at all.'
The bylaw was introduced by Labour-dominated Waltham Forest in March and applies only to those takeaways yet to receive planning permission.
It prevents them from opening close to one another and puts a limit on the total number in the borough's town centres.

The fast food ban has not been adopted nationwide but its progress is being monitored by other local authorities who could copy it.

Council leader Clyde Loakes said: 'This fast food outlet has not got planning permission and has absolutely no chance of getting it, because of its proximity to a park and a school, so we're closing it down.

'A lot of fast food outlets do their business with schoolchildren, in competition with the healthy schools agenda. We have a responsibility to look beyond the next year or two to the health of our children and young people.'

The Metropolitan Police was unable to explain why it had such a strong presence in the raid.

I would rather see them close those cheap sri lankan fake ass kfc wannabe chicken shops. The type those kids go on about in that "junior spesh" video on youtube. Kids rinse that crap out all day.
And you know any place that offers a piece an chips for a £ is frowsy

Easier to shutdown the blck business I suppose.

Reading the article and i don't quite get it...forget about the race aspect for one second. i don't understand the wording of the law.....

"The bylaw was introduced by Labour-dominated Waltham Forest in March and applies only to those takeaways yet to receive planning permission. "


Are they talking about health permits.....zoning laws and stuff?
i thought you needed all of that before you even opened up or even leased space for a business. how was this restaurant open without getting "planning permission"?


Gotta admit, i laughed at the part about them sending a letter 3 days before they came and shut down the place..... ahahaha

rules? & Caribbean people??? SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTtt?


*yep i said it..and i CAN


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and Mokele, just to illustrate how much of a similar experience black people have worldwide....they have those same "chicken shacks" over here.......owned by indian and arab folks...

Its a new scheme they're bringing about to prevent those (rank) stores from selling their, ''food'' to children so I'm guessing that they've given those already open a bly and are applying it to any new fast food store you have to apply for a license before opening such places so now they're saying, ''if you're within blah blah distance of a school you won't get it''... when those new stores have to reapply they might make it an issue.

These guys seem to have got themselves caught up in the midst of it and were allowed to open only to be shut down... theres a case for them to take it to court in my opinion as first off they're not a fast food store, they're a restaurant take away... where is the line drawn? Its a cultural thing, how can you label carribean food as ''junk'' or ''fast'' yeah we're quick (fastest in the world) but what about Indian take away, or chinese, does that count? Secondly, they shouldn't have been allowed to open only for them to be closed down in such a fasion, I'd take them to court for the expences spent in opening.

This is interesting, I'm hoping this legislation is not targeted at mainly African and Caribbean food outlets. Somehow I don't see them giving a McD that much trouble or indeed an Indian or Chinese takeaway. This is important as how many Indian and Chinese takeaways have set up generations of those in the Indian and Chinese communities? We often talk of the importance of the patronage of black business and this is one area (unlike hair and beauty) others cannot takeover. All these resturant owners need to do is get into selling to the population at large( yes, white folks) to generate more income like the Chinese and Indians have.

A colleauge sent me this story and I thought it was a joke!

Check out the attached pics - looks like a drugs raid...

Hmmmmm.... perhaps they thought Al capone was shipping coke through there or something, secret cashe of weapons stamped, ''Made in Britian'' behind the cooker .lol.

Truth is its not easy shutting down places, working reposessions etc... you're talking about something someone has invested a lot of time and money into... difficult telling how they're likely to react, knives to hand and so on. Remember the council sending heavies round to literally take stuff from me at work, like, they were there to literally take my computer and anything of value in the building to pay for rates which had nothing to do with me... had to find the money on the spot... but let me tell you, human instinct had it that there would have been serious trouble if they had touched my stuff and that was obvious from the get go no matter how big they were I would have beat them both down before they took anything from me, ended up calling the feds so it would have been 4 of them mash up in the the place but there you go. Insticntive to fight for whats yours, well, at least for some .lol.

@Vezz; Agree with thre law, too many fast food places opening around the place but jerk chickhen, fish and rice with beans is hardly fast food, as said, its cultural, you can't offend a people like that and class their nations food as junk next to the rest. What they should do is check the grade of the food stuffs used.. like you can buy low grade chickhen which is cheap, so places selling that should be graded as junk outlets and so on like some Chinese stores are all out junk, no offence to them but they're not too far off from those cheap chickhen places some of the ingerdients in the sauces should literally come with a warning label, other chinese stores aren't that bad on the other hand and shouldn't be classed as such... needs to be a band, classing, can't treat them all the same.