Former Wolves footballer’s wine bar asks to extend opening hours year after licence suspended over lock-ins
A wine bar owned by a former Wolves player has asked for permission to open later a year after its licence was suspended for hosting late-night lock-ins.
Chill Wine Bar in Tettenhall, owned by former Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Mo Camara, was given a slap on the wrist by City of Wolverhampton Council for allowing three lock-ins in 2024.
The application to City of Wolverhampton Council asks for permission to extend the Tettenhall wine bar’s opening hours by 30 mins from 12.30am to 1am and play live and recorded music until 12.30am.
The bar, which opened in the village’s High Street in 2017, had its licence suspended for a month following the hearing in Wolverhampton in July last year.
Mr Camara was also removed as the bar’s supervisor after allowing drinks to be served to a packed bar on consecutive weekends in February and again in March – despite a warning from the council but was allowed to remain as the venue’s licence holder.
The licensing hearing heard how many revellers in Tettenhall would finish their nights at Mr Camara’s bar after leaving nearby pubs at midnight.
The wine bar then agreed to cut its closing time by half an hour to align with nearby pubs to prevent it from drawing crowds looking to grab a ‘quick’ drink.
Ahead of the hearing, licensing officers at City of Wolverhampton Council had called for Mr Camara to be removed as the bar’s supervisor and for the licence to be suspended for up to three months.
Lisa Richardson-Lewty, who represented Mr Camara at the hearing, said the former footballer had made “poor management decisions” and the wine bar was now employing an “established and knowledgeable” supervisor that was a “considered choice and not just a name on a piece of paper.”
She said the wine bar could not afford to close for three months and was happy to remove Mr Camara as the licence holder if necessary.
The council’s licensing manager Greg Bickerdike dismissed claims that only ‘soft’ drinks had been served after hours as “fanciful at best” and criticised Mr Camara for staying open when he should not have – and again after a warning.
“If he is not capable of understanding ‘don’t open past these hours’ then I don’t know what hope we have for the rest of the conditions being implemented correctly,” he told the hearing.
Mr Camara was warned by the council and given 14 days to provide the CCTV footage – recordings the council said were “incomplete” when handed over.
Another complaint that the venue was open after hours again on March 18, despite the warning, was later confirmed by CCTV.
Mo Camara played 45 times for Wolves in the early 2000s in a spell that saw the Guinea international become a cult hero at Molineux.
He also made appearances for Celtic, Burnley and Derby.
