A restaurant boss fears he may lose a whopping £15,000 a week after the council ordered him to tear down a marquee.
Sam Harrison could be forced to close down his high-end brasserie Sam's Riverside in Hammersmith, west London.
This comes after Hammersmith and Fulham Council rejected his application to keep the customer marquee that he has had for three years, and makes him up to a huge £15,000 a week.
The owner, who has been in the trade for 18 years, is now embroiled in a heated clash with the council.
He has already had to lay off four staff members at the posh restaurant, and may have to let even more go following the local council's refusal to keep the current marquee.
Mr Harrison took the marquee down on November 23 at the behest of the London council, prompting the two sides to clash in a Twitter storm.
He said that the temporary construction takes an extra two chefs and two waiters to run, but he cannot afford to keep paying their wages without the added income from the lunch and dinner service of these 32 outside covers.
The top chef is now worried the massive loss to the restaurant's Christmas trade - which has so far seen 50 bookings dropped - could sink the company.
He added that planning officers have refused to visit the restaurant in person, and would only speak via video chat.
In a lengthy statement, the council have said the authority "are dismayed there has been so much misrepresentation about this case" and dismissed Mr Harrison's complaints as "a media campaign", adding that they have visited the site many times already.
But Mr Harrison maintained his position, adding: "A lot of what the council have said in their statement is factually incorrect."
The restaurant opened in November 2019, on Riverside Studios, which is a new complex in a "sensitive conservation area", and adhered to strict planning rules.
Mr Harrison says the marquee has been up since they moved in when Riverside Studios opened, and planned the marquee before then - before Covid-19 changed restaurant restrictions across the nation.
But the council insists the structure was only allowed under Covid laws that temporarily relaxed planning permission for outdoor spaces.
Council bosses have added that the restaurant's plans to make the marquee permanent "failed to meet planning criteria" of the area.
Instead, they said they would consider to allow the restaurant to have a temporary marquee - that is erected each morning for service and then taken apart each evening.
But Mr Harrison has now accused the London council of "changing the rulebook".
He said: "I know we've lost £10,000 to £15,000 a week.
"They could have changed the rulebook because the whole world has changed post-pandemic, there are examples of this up and down the country.
"Hospitality is on its knees, and people are saying one-in-three establishments won't be here come spring - I just think the council needs to be a little less black and white.
"Surely they could have said we don't want you to have the marquee and these are the reasons, but we understand how important December is - I would have said, 'OK, I would have liked it for the whole year but at least that's going to help me'.
"That's how conversations work."
He went on to add that the decision is "particularly heart-breaking at this time of year" where, "Everyone's nervous about the winter ahead, and then to lose your job, or have your hours cut - if I don't have that terrace I don't need as many staff and I can't employ people just for the sake of employing people, I'll go bust."
Mr Harrison said: "The extra 32 covers of that marquee at lunch and dinner equates to two chefs and two waiters, if it's not open, I don't need them.
"I've had staff in tears as their hours have been cut because they don't know what they're going to do.
"I think the thing is the council are saying publicly that they want to find a solution and to help us, but they're not doing that. Just act on your words, that's almost more galling."
The joint, which bagged at place in Harden's top 10 restaurants in London, sits beneath 170 flats, and several residents have made noise complaints to the council.
But in order to combat this, the establishment now closes its doors at 10pm.
However, a handful of complaints have persisted and have been a major trigger with the current council dispute.
Speaking about this, Mr Harrison said: "Rightly or wrongly, we've had residents say that outdoor dining is a disturbance for them.
"In the statement [by the council], they're suggesting that they're allowing us to make use of the terrace this winter, and they're giving us that.
"But we've always had permission to have people outside, that's what's absurd, they're not granting us that now, we've had that since before we opened in 2019. That wasn't a Covid thing, we are allowed to have 32 people sitting outside."
He went on to say: "Our whole point is that the marquee that they've allowed us to have over the last two years, and the permanent structure, would be a better long-term solution - both of those reduce noise.
"But they have said, no, we're not going to allow you to have anything.
"By taking my marquee away you've meant I've had to cancel all my Christmas bookings, because people don't want to sit out in the cold.
"The head of communications at the council replied to me last week saying 'we want to find a solution for you, we want to work with you, we understand the economic ramifications of this and we want to find a solution'."
A Hammersmith and Fulham Council spokesperson said the authority has engaged with the restauranteur's application and have sought ways to utilise the outdoor space within planning law.
But the council have blamed Mr Harrison for the deterioration of negotiations, saying that he is a "proprietor" and "running a media campaign to get the original planning judgement reversed".
The authority went on to say: "There has been a tremendous amount of misrepresentation about what has happened and that needs to be corrected.
"Sam's Riverside submitted an unsuccessful planning application to permanently extend their restaurant at the Riverside Studios.
"The planning application submitted by Sam's Riverside failed to meet planning criteria. That is why it was rejected."
The council continued that they suggested discussing ways to help the restaurant utilise the outdoor space temporarily through the Christmas period, but Mr Harrison "only wanted to talk about a more permanent structure."
"We were therefore perplexed when two days after that meeting, on Wednesday 7 December, Mr Harrison tweeted that the council has demonstrated an 'unwillingness to find a solution'. That is plainly not true," they said.
"The planning consultants asked for the application to be decided as it stood and without any changes being made to it.
"It was therefore also not right for Mr Harrison to tweet on 29 November that Sam's Riverside has 'been unable to get a response from anyone at H&F'.
"This is an allegation Mr Harrison has since repeated. We are dismayed there has been so much misrepresentation about this case.
"While Hammersmith & Fulham is very sympathetic to the challenges faced by Sam's Riverside, we cannot breach planning regulations because he has chosen to run a media campaign."
The council went on to say that: "We hope we can find ways to help Sam's Riverside operate at full capacity even in its existing footprint and clarify for Mr Harrison once again how any planning application must sit within planning law."
A meeting between Mr Harrison's team and the leader of the council has been set up, the authority said.
