David Lavender

David Lavender, who died on December 19 aged 68, was widely regarded as the best licensing law advocate in London, and known as "Rumpole" due to his dry wit, sharp brain, and disdain for an empty glass.

 

 

Lavender was often to be seen striding through the streets of Soho in a three-piece suit, pipe billowing smoke beneath his hat. But his eccentric demeanour concealed a highly effective operator.

David Lavender

It was he who pioneered the Sunday afternoon pint when, in 1994, he secured a licence for the Oxford Arms in Camden that extended hours to allow all-day drinking on the Sabbath, thus paving the way for the change in legislation with the Licensing Act (Sunday Hours) of 1995. He also held the – still unbeaten – record for new licences obtained in a single day, some 200 for Canary Wharf.

A frequent opponent of Westminster City Council, he was much respected by the police for his integrity. His methods, however, were not always conventional. Once, he arrived at the courthouse after it had closed for the day and, fearing that the delay would incur his client's wrath, proceeded to the back of the building where he threw the application through the window of the Gents.

As soon as the court reopened in the morning, he directed the bemused clerk towards the lavatories, demonstrating that the application had been submitted by close of business the previous day.

He was noted for his gruff kindness in Soho, which he regarded as a village; he acted gratis for local old ladies and for the Berwick Street market traders. There was hardly a restaurant or pub in the West End that did not greet him warmly, and he was happy to dispense advice to those in need. A highly literate man who read voraciously, he was relied upon by Auberon Waugh as a regular judge of poetry competitions for the Literary Review.

Franklin David Lavender was born August 23 1942. He was educated at St Peter's School, York, where his father was the French master, and then at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read Law.
As a young lawyer he personally served a writ on the Kray brothers. His flair for licensing led Charles Forte to appoint him the senior solicitor acting for Forte hotels. At the age of 36, in 1979, he became the senior partner of Allen & Son and set about building a firm which was responsible for liquor and entertainment licenses for approximately a third of the West End's clubs, pubs and restaurants.
In 1984 Buckingham Palace appointed him Clerk to the Board of Green Cloth, Verge of the Palaces, a position that he maintained until 2000. The Board, the last surviving Court of the Royal Prerogative, met at Buckingham Palace, granting all alcohol and gaming licences at and near all Royal Palaces, until it disappeared in the reforms of the Licensing Act of 2003.
Poor health brought about his early retirement which he spent with his family and two dogs. Unable to walk to the pubs at his home in Osterley, he ensured that his nearby Chinese restaurant got a licence to serve alcohol.
David Lavender married, in 1971, Vivienne Spindler, who survives him with their daughter. He also had two children by a previous marriage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/law-obituaries/8357930/David-Lavender.html