The Haçienda (30 page)

Tony knew how to get publicity and during this period that really helped. He highlighted our problems with the gangs in the press. The police really,really hated that he brought their shortcomings out for all to see. They were anti-Haçienda. They just wanted the club to disappear,which is ironic:I’d have thought that knowing where every lunatic and Salford gangster was located on a nightly basis would have been handy. Tony also complained about the cops’ treatment of the club to Manchester city council every chance he got.He wouldn’t let them get away with it.

Not that it helped on our door, of course – the attitude of the doormen had to change. They had to become much, much harder in order to protect themselves.Everything had to change.Eventually the whole axis of power in the club would shift, so that it was no longer the management running it – it was the doormen.

Throughout 1990 there were numerous instances of violence, with doormen and clubbers assaulted, guns pulled, knives used. Some gangsters saw the dealers as easy targets for muggings, or ‘taxings’ as they were called; others wanted a slice of the drug-money pie. At Christmas that year there was an incident at Discotheque Royale, where Cheetham Hill gang members beat up doormen, then ‘taxed’ dealers and clubbers at gunpoint. The most notorious taxing method was the ‘scraping’, which meant a
dealer being kidnapped, driven to the M602 roundabout in Salford, then having his face held to the tarmac while the car drove round. There were incidents at Konspiracy and the Kitchen. The seeds of Gunchester were already sown.

FAC 51 Limited
Trading as: the Haçienda

FAC 51 Limited
Trading as: the Haçienda