An entrepreneur who says he has sunk his last penny into a Bradford nightclub has accused people of trying to drive him out.

Mohammed Aslam, who emigrated from Florida eight months ago to take over Dusk Till Dawn, in Manville Terrace, Bradford, has claimed that residents are using delaying tactics to stop his application for an entertainment licence.

Mr Aslam's comments follow a decision by Bradford Council's licensing panel to defer granting him a licence yesterday after objectors said they did not have an interpreter and could not understand the panel's proceedings.

The protesters said they had not received letters informing them about the meeting until yesterday and had not had time to organise an interpreter.

The Council has received a petition objecting to the licence because of possible noise and disturbance from the premises.

Afterwards the meeting, Mr Aslam said: "I came here from Florida and sank £40,000 into this club and now I'm stuck in the middle of these local politics. I have put my last penny into this and I'm going to have to carry on until they have the jacket off my back.

"The whole area is more commercial than residential. There has been a club there for 25 years. Why have they decided to pick on us?"

The club's manager, Barry Evans, said: "We have been out of business since December 4 so we've had no source of income since then. To say they couldn't understand was purely a delaying tactic.''

And the owner of Ujala Tandoori restaurant upstairs, said the residents' opposition was also driving him out of business. Fazal Mahmood, said: "I put my restaurant there because there was a club underneath. Now I'm not getting any business from it.''

But the objectors' representative, Councillor Sajawal Hussain, said the people present at the panel had a right to understand proceedings.

Coun Hussain said the lead petitioner had been unable to tell the other objectors about the meeting because he was in hospital.

"People had a right to have their say through an interpreter. They wanted to say so many things,'' he added.

"One elderly man said that if he could speak English he would have said that Mr Aslam may have invested £40,000 but what about our peace of mind and families and the thousands of pounds that we have invested in buying our houses. Mr Aslam should have found a better place to invest it."

The licence will be considered again on April 4.

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