Florita's, Madame Koo and House of Smith have licences suspended

Florita's, Madame Koo and House of Smith all operate on Newcastle's Diamond Strip

Three bars said by police to have a "horribly wrong" drug culture have had their licences suspended.

Florita's, Madame Koo and House of Smith on Newcastle's Diamond Strip were targeted by Northumbria Police amid concerns of widespread drug use.

Police applied for operator Apartment Group to have its licence revoked, but Newcastle City Council instead suspended it for three months.

Apartment Group said the police were being "grossly disproportionate".

The council's licensing committee set stricter conditions for when the bars do reopen including extra security staff, more thorough monitoring of CCTV during peak trading hours, and a ban on staff socialising at the venues.

The committee was told the bars on Collingwood Street were closed for six days over Christmas and New Year 2017 in a police crackdown on Class A drugs which later saw 20 people jailed.

Police sought to permanently close the bars after seeing CCTV footage of four off-duty staff taking cocaine in House of Smith's smoking area in December 2019, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Officers said the bars had a staff culture of "normalising exploitative behaviour" and taking drugs on the premises.

The Apartment Group said the bars, which have been closed since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, were undergoing a £2m refurbishment which will created five venues called the Collingwood Collection.

Councillors said there "appeared to be a culture whereby staff on the premises believed they could socialise whilst off duty and partake in drug taking without concern as to consequence".

But, the committee said, the Apartment Group "accepted that there were issues and areas that could be improved upon".

The group's chief operating officer Debrah Dhugga said she was "grateful" for the committee's decision not to revoke the licence, adding: "We want to invest in the city."