A Buckinghamshire shisha lounge that illegally sold alcohol and broke Covid rules has been given permission to reopen as a bar and restaurant.

Soin Lounge occupies the Grade II listed building at 74 Oxford Road, Denham, formerly the Dog and Duck pub.

The plans to reopen the property include demolishing unlawfully built extensions, rebuilding approved and previously built rear extensions and a barn and creating a new side porch.

The site, which has operated as Maya Tandoori, Turpins and Tiger Cubs, will also feature ‘associated visitor accommodation’.

However, planning officers said the 11 bedrooms ‘should at no point be let out/rented/sold as independent residential units’.

Tiger Cubs Investment Ltd, run by Muhammed Meraj, said it was putting forward its plans for the site following neighbours and planning authorities’ ‘unrest as a result of the unlawful previous activities undertaken by freeholders’.

The applicant claimed its proposals had been drafted by a ‘separate management team’ to that of Soin Lounge.

A look at Tiger Cubs’ profile on Companies House shows that its former directors are Abdul Kahir Ujjal and Moyn Uddin, who resigned from the firm in 2018.

The pair were the licence holders of Soin Lounge when the venue was stripped of its licence by Buckinghamshire Council in 2020 over unlawful activities at the site.

Officers found that the pair had repeatedly ignored legal notices and revoked Soin Lounge’s right to keep or sell alcohol at its premises.

The council also criticised Mr Uddin for his ‘cavalier attitude’, saying that he is ‘clearly not fit and proper to hold such a licence and has no understanding or regard for licensing legislation’.

Gaurav Soin, the former manager of Soin Lounge, also pleaded guilty to multiple offences at Wycombe Magistrates’ Court in October 2021 and was ordered to pay more than £5,000 in fines and costs.

Following an investigation into the shisha lounge, the council and Thames Valley Police confirmed that there had been violations of Covid rules, the illegal sale of alcohol and breaches of smoking legislation.

Some of the activities at Soin Lounge during the pandemic were noted by environmental health officers, who heard loud noise at the venue and saw a patron urinating on a fence during their investigation.

In a notebook entry from August 202, officer Alison King wrote: “I heard some music I recognised as ‘Material Girl’ by Peter Andre. I took this to be a recording and not a live performance. I then heard ‘Return of the Mack’ also being played.”