A NELSON nightclub will have to close two hours earlier at weekends after restrictions on its licence were upheld.

Following a significant number of crime reports in relation to the Good Night Club during the past two years, a district judge said restrictions imposed on its license, at a review hearing in March, will stand.

This means the Stanley Street venue will have to close at 2am on Fridays and Saturdays and 1am on Sundays.

A four week suspension order for training to be carried out will no longer stand as the club has been closed since August following a fire.

At the hearing, at Reedley Magistrates, on Thursday, the court was told the club had become a magnet for troublemakers.

And since it closed in August the area had become very quiet.

Police officers, from Nelson, also said Dave Geddes, licensee at the club, had also been given an opportunity to turn things around at the venue.

Speaking after the hearing, PC Chris Storey, licensing officer for Pendle, said: “The judge weighed up all the evidence and thought the council had made the correct decision in the first place.

“The result was the right one at the end of the day.

“Crime has been almost zero in that area since the club shut in August and it was unacceptable before that.

“The licensee has said he will struggle to open at all now because they hardly get anything before 2am.

“I think it could be the end of the Good Night Club – or it will have to be seriously reinvented.”