A new “high class” Japanese restaurant in Purley has been given the green light to open until 2.30am seven days a week.

Zen Lounge in Brighton Road opened its doors in April after a £300,000 refurbishment.

Previously it was Lebanese restaurant and lounge, Aroma, which closed in June 2018.

The new owner, Junaid Iqbal, has kept the previous shisha lounge on the first floor of the establishment.

Plans to open until 2.30am every day were approved by Croydon Council’s licensing committee on Monday (November 25).

In the same area there is a 24-hour gym, poker club and recycling centre.

Originally the restaurant wanted to open until 4.30am daily but changed this to 2.30am following discussions with the police and council’s licensing department.

At the meeting some concerns were raised by ward representative, Councillor Simon Hoar, on behalf of neighbours to the restaurant.

He said: “It is busy in the daytime because of the road, but it is quiet at night. The concern is over public nuisance. 

“I’ve been past many times late at night and there’s a high number of cars that are parked outside they tend to be high-powered cars.

“You are going to have people coming out at 2.30am and starting up their cars.”

But lawyer for the applicant, Piers Warne, said there is a 150 space car park on the roof with access to the first floor.

He said he thought the cars may be from the gym or poker club next door.

Mr Warne said: “There is no sale of alcohol  here which is unusual for a late night licence

“In the past this has been a pub, a nightclub and it had squatters in it for a significant amount of time which caused some issues.”

“The ground floor is now a Japanese restaurant, the chef is fairly well known in shisha restaurants. The first floor is a shisha lounge and tea lounge. Effectively what we have here is a very high class premises operating.”

He said that staff from the Zen Lounge visited residents to hear their concerns and tell them more about the establishment.

“We have not not seen any representations by residents and haven’t been made aware of any from residents,” added Mr Warne.

“We’ve emailed Councillor Hoar so we could understand, but we didn’t receive a response so that’s a little frustrating.

Mr Iqbal said: “The previous business was a shisha lounge so I didn’t make any structural changes.”

For the smoking of shisha to be the building needs to be considered 50 per cent open.

This is the case with the top floor of Zen Lounge, although it does have a roof.

Mr Iqbal said that he has introduced electric heaters, instead of gas heaters that were used at the previous establishment.

To address concerns about loud music he added that Zen Lounge only uses background Japanese instrumental music.

The licensing application was approved which means that Zen Lounge can open from 11am until 2.30am every day.