DOOR staff at a Weymouth nightclub have been taking licensing rules so seriously that two DJs were locked out.

The incident resulted in music at the Chic Bar and Club stopping and all 230 customers and staff having to leave early.

Club owner Mr Parviz Panjalizadeh-Marseh recounted the episode during a hearing to consider a request for an temporary extension to give an extra hour of opening on Sunday April 2nd until 3.30am, which was approved.

The club, which used to be called Actors, was closed down by the police in December 2021 after concerns about drug dealing while owner Mr Panjalizadeh-Marseh was away on holiday. Since last July it has been able to open again with greater restrictions and security, including scanning and body searches, and fewer opening hours than it used to have.

The club owner said the no late entry or re-entry rules had been applied strictly, along with the other conditions, with no reports to the police or environmental health since July.

He said the actions of door staff, which were correct by the club conditions, meant that a DJ who turned up for the last set of the evening after the cut off time for admissions at 1.30am was refused entry. The DJ who was playing at the time then left the building to see what was happening – only to be refused re-entry by the door staff, with the music shortly afterwards coming to an end.

Mr Panjalizadeh-Marseh said the unforeseen problem resulted in 230 people taking to Weymouth streets, with every other late licence premises already full, and nowhere else for them to go.

“It caused a lot of grief…Even if I went outside as the owner, I wouldn’t be allowed back in,” said Mr Panjalizadeh-Marseh who said that he will now be working with licensing staff to modify the condition to avoid a repetition of the incident.

He told councillors at the hearing that with 27 years as a licensee and his own money in the business he would not be taking any risks and would strictly maintain all of the conditions to keep the business going.

He said that the new door entry policy since the summer had resulted in all the known drug dealers keeping away from the premises : “They don’t come near because of the scanning and body searches,” he said.

Dorset Council licensing staff confirmed that their inspections had always found conditions being complied with since the re-opening and that calls about the club and its patrons had reduced to ‘almost zero’.

Mr Panjalizadeh-Marseh said that since re-opening neither the police nor the ambulance had ever needed to be called to the Maiden Street premises.

“We are not careless operators. Things went wrong when I was absent but I’m now looking after the business and I won’t jeopardise it by having anything go wrong,” he said.