Trading Gossip: Have things gones baa-dly wrong?

Apr 9 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine Clarke, chief executive of Liverpool bar operator Baa Bar Group, who has been nominated for a top national women’s enterprise award.

CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine Clarke, chief executive of Liverpool bar operator Baa Bar Group, who has been nominated for a top national women’s enterprise award.

We are sure the judges of the 2008 Prowess Awards will be impressed with Ms Clarke, below, who started work at another local business, Cafe Tabac, aged just 16, and ended up acquiring it herself.

However, we hope they don’t look too closely at the recent history of the Baa Bar Group, which in April, 2007, reported a half-year pre-tax loss of more than £400,000.

In May last year, its Liverpool city centre nightspot was given a reprieve by licensing officials, despite concerns expressed by Merseyside Police about incidents of violence.

Ms Clarke and her management team had to agree to implement measures to curb trouble and, at the licensing hearing, its lawyer insisted: “We have now got our house in order.”

FRESH from hob-nobbing with the movers and shakers of the city’s business community at the Grand National, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce chief executive Jack Stopforth was spotted making his way into Alliance & Leicester’s corporate box at Anfield last night.

The life-long Reds fan said: “I am in the prawn sandwich brigade now. I deserve it after a lifetime spent on the Kop.”

THE new owner of the Pontin’s holiday camp chain, Southport-based Ian Smith, once found himself working in Zimbabwe.

History buffs will be aware that the African state was formerly called Rhodesia under British colonial rule, and for many years was run by a man also called Ian Smith.

“Everyone I was introduced to in the country gave me a wry smile when they heard my name,” he said.