The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, on Saturday, shut down a popular nightclub, Quilox, on Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island, for organising an event without a sound control permit.
According to a statement on Sunday, the enforcement exercise, which was jointly carried out by LASEPA and the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit (task force), took place around 4pm.
The General Manager, LASEPA, Dolapo Fasawe, disclosed that the agency received several distress calls with video evidence from concerned neighbours on the alleged environmental nuisance constituted by the club.
She said, “To avert situations like this, we recently held a stakeholders’ parley with the owners and chief executive officers of night clubs in the state to address the issue of noise pollution during the festive period. The state, in its magnanimity, compassionately increased the decibels to accommodate leisure and hospitality business interest.
“We urged them to apply for sound control permits to enable us to reach out and notify the host community of the intended programme and further deploy our officials to the venue for proper monitoring and prevention of excessive noise pollution.”
Fasawe noted that an invitation was extended to Quilox, like every other stakeholder, which was ignored by the club.
Quilox is owned by the lawmaker representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa Federal Constituency, Oyo State, Shina Peller.
In December 2019, the club was similarly sealed by LASEPA over noise pollution and traffic congestion.
The incident generated a controversy after Peller was also arrested by the police over the incident.