Southampton's Junk is under threat of closure

Junk in Southampton is to have its license reviewed in May after police allegations that drugs and violence are rife at the venue.

The review of the 700-capacity club, where we hosted Mixmag Live with Annie Mac in February, will take place on May 5 with a Facebook statement saying "if we are unsuccessful in this review process, then we will take it with pride and go out graciously."

Despite having its last entry time extended to 3am at the beginning of the year, Junk's now under pressure following stabbing incidents in close proximity to the club on January 22, even though it "was closed at the time of these attacks."

Regarding the violence, Junk's statement reads: "Clubs do not have crystal balls and we could never predict such an event to occur but we do everything in our power to prevent them; we operate plastic glass policy, a challenge 25 ID policy and always overstaff on our door and carry out searches. We cooperated fully with police at the time and offered our full support regarding the investigation with the hope that the police would catch the people involved who committed the crimes."

A report in Southampton newspaper The Daily Echo suggests drugs are a problem there, but the club refutes this by saying "the venue has no history of drug offences. Any mention of drugs in the report are incidents where drugs have been seized and handed over to the police. Once again our positive work to assist the police in stopping drug crime is used against us."

Since January, the club has upped its security measures, including increased CCTV surveillance, more ID scanning and extra thorough door searches, the last two leading to longer queues getting inside the venue.

Junk has previously spent time in court after police alleged "London gangs" were operating there, but magistrates came to the conclusion that its license hadn't been breached.

A #savejunk party is taking place on April 23, featuring "special guest DJs", and a petition has been launched in support, gathering over 2,000 supporters at the time of writing.

Head here to read the statement in full.

Dave Turner is Mixmag's Digital News Editor, follow him on Twitter