Dundee’s biggest nightclub Fat Sams has been sold to its fiercest competitor, the UK’s largest nightclub operator, the Luminar Group.
The 3,000-capacity venue, which has been independently run since opening 30 years ago, has been bought by the firm that owns the adjoining Liquid & Envy.
The former home of Scotland’s biggest promoter DF Concerts, Fat Sams is one of the country’s biggest clubbing venues and brings Luminar’s Scottish operations up to four, and 55 in the UK.
The current owners took over the then 550-capacity club around 13 years ago and set about revamping the building, adding three more rooms, including the 1,000-capacity Live!, a purpose-built venue for touring bands.
It evolved into one of the top venues in Scotland, but lately its trade had dipped after the opening of the nearby GCasino and the awarding of 2.30am licences to several pubs in the city centre.
Luminar Group chief executive officer Peter Marks said: “Fat Sams has been an iconic nightclub and live music venue in the city since 1983. It’s a great fit for our estate and complements, rather than competes, with our neighbouring Liquid & Envy venue.”
The new owners are keen to stress that it’s business as usual with forthcoming shows by the Boomtown Rats and Johnny Marr.
Luminar also confirmed that the venue will transfer all 37 Fat Sams employees to the national company.
The previous management had attempted on several occasions to gain a 4am licence to allow them to compete with the casino, arguing that their trade had been adversely affected by the later “hybrid” pub licences and the free-entry, 6am licenced gambling operation across the street.
The city council’s licensing board last month overhauled its policy on alcohol licences, adapting a new three-tier policy of 1am, 2am and 3am, for pubs, “hybrid” pubs with “substantial entertainment” and nightclubs.
Former Fat Sams general manager Colin Rattray, one of several management personnel made redundant recently by the club, laid the blame for the sale firmly at the licensing board’s night-time policy.
Mr Rattray, the former president of the Dundee Licensed Trade Association, said: “In 2009 the Grosvenor Casino opened with an ability to serve alcohol 20 hours per day, 364 days of the year this was allowed under the gaming act legislation not the licensing act.
“Since then public houses have been granted a terminal hour of 2.30am.
“As a local business being squeezed out by multi-nationals, I find it bizarre that the local licensing board chose to ignore our plea for parity.
“We never asked for anything others have not received. All we wanted was a level playing field with the same conditions and restrictions applied to all purveyors of alcohol.”