Imperial proprietor Shadd Danesi lodged an application with the City of Sydney in August, asking council to increase patron numbers within the venue’s POPE area from 442 to 788.

However, Council last week rejected the application, and the matter will now head to the NSW Land and Environment Court, says Danesi, who claims that Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore was putting lives at risk.

“346 people will now be forced to queue on the footpath outside because they won’t be able to get in,” Danesi told SX.

“These people will have to line up in the cold, and will be at the mercy of gay bashers, on a footpath that Council’s own engineers have acknowledged is unsafe, and where people are at risk of being struck by vehicles.

“If something happens to one of these people, then there will be blood on Clover’s hands,” he said.

Danesi said that a new Land and Environment Court challenge would cost both him and the City “thousands more in wasted money” and that “Clover’s constituents should be questioning why their rates are being used in this way just because she has a vendetta against the Imperial Hotel”.

“I can’t understand why she’s acting this way,” he said.

Representatives of the Lord Mayor did not return calls from SX seeking comment.

Danesi said the Imperial would be open year’s end, despite the latest setback.

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