The boss of Wolverhampton’s troubled Moscow Bar today revealed how he wanted to drive away the gangs that have blighted the city centre nightspot.

John Codner said he wanted the Darlington Street venue to remain open so he could work with police on solving its problems. The 28-year-old, who has been in charge for a year, admitted while the bar was “not the sort of place you’d take your girlfriend”, he said it was largely the gangs and not the business to blame for its problems.

“The main issue is not the Moscow Bar but the gangs of Wolverhampton,” he said. “If you close the bar they will just move somewhere else in the city. We need to get these people off the streets. The police obviously know these people – why aren’t their houses being raided? Why aren’t they being arrested?

“Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not the sort of place you’d take your girlfriend, but the real issue is not the bar, it’s the gangs.”

Mr Codner defended the bar’s record, saying: “There have only been two incidents of violence in the actual bar.

“One person was punched in the eye months ago and we prosecuted that person and assisted police. If you compare our log with other bars in the city, ours has far fewer incidents.”

Mr Codner, who runs another venue in the city, moved into the business after 10 years in recruitment and admitted some of the problems at Moscow Bar had been as a result of how it was being run.

“I am not saying we have not been at fault,” he said. “We have made mistakes, but we have learnt and are learning from them. I have a good working relationship with the police on the ground floor, the ones that do the licensing checks etc, and I will be working with them closely in the future.”

The Moscow Bar has a capacity of 210 and when it first opened attracted up to 200 people a night.

Mr Codner said: “If the bar was that bad, 200 people wouldn’t go to it.

“I have five sisters and my niece works at the bar, there is no way my sister would let her work there if it was dangerous. We play a mixture of music and attract a mixture of people: men, women, white, black, Asian. We didn’t set out to attract any one group – we didn’t go ‘right, we want to get the gangsters in, let’s play this music or that music.’”