It's Happening Everywhere: Vacant London Pub Owned by Gordon Ramsay Taken Over by Squatters

It's not just happening in the United States. Recently, at least six squatters broke into celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's temporarily closed London pub, boarded up the windows, barred the doors, and refused to leave.

At least six freeloaders broke into Ramsay’s York and Albany hotel and gastropub, which is for sale for $16.1 million, boarded up the windows, locked the door with kitchen utensils and glued the locks.
The chef is trying to sign over the building in a multi-million-dollar deal, The Sun reports. Ramsay stars in the "Hell's Kitchen, The American Dream" reality show and Next Level Chef on Fox.
Shocking photographs show the squatters holed up in the trendy pub, one of whom can be seen barefoot and sprawled across on a black leather sofa.

The pub was closed while the negotiation of a new lease was underway, when the gang of squatters bypassed security and took over the building. The squatters are citing an oddity in U.K. law that differentiates between residential and commercial properties where occupation is concerned.

The occupation of a person’s non-residential property without their permission is not itself a crime in the U.K., though police can take action if crimes are subsequently committed, including damaging the property or stealing from it, according to Wales Online.
"Take notice that we occupy this property and at all times there is at least one person in occupation," the notice reads, according to The Sun.
"Any entry or attempt to enter into these premises without our permission is therefore a criminal offense as any one of us who is in physical possession is opposed to such entry without our permission . . . if you attempt to enter by violence or by threatening violence, we will prosecute you."

As a British commenter might say: The bloody cheek of these people!

On the official British government website, a section on "Squatting and the Law" appears to agree with this report, stating in part:

A non-residential property is any building or land that is not designed to be lived in.
Simply being on another person’s non-residential property without their permission is not usually a crime. The police can take action if squatters commit other crimes when entering or staying in a property.

It's hard to imagine that trespassing in and of itself is not a crime in the United Kingdom, not to mention occupying private property with no lease. While U.S. states are slowly coming around to take legal steps to prevent this practice, the Brits might be a few steps behind.

'I Am Not Woke': Fetterman Continues to Surprise, Blasts Squatters and Violent Crime

It seems that in the United Kingdom, it's allowable to essentially steal commercial property, as long as one doesn't commit any other crime in the process. I'm no legal expert but, in this case, the fact that the people boarded up windows and glued locks shut would constitute, at the very least, vandalism and destruction of property, but that evidently isn't enough of a crime. This begs the question, though, as to what other options might be open to Ramsay: Shutting off power and water, or perhaps fumigation. But then, with the current state of the British government, it wouldn't be surprising to find that Ramsay would be the one in trouble in such a case.

This is an intolerable situation, no matter which side of the Atlantic it occurs on. It's inconceivable that this possibility exists in British law; the government has utterly failed Gordon Ramsay and his business here, and has also utterly failed in one of the two basic purposes of government: To protect the liberty and property of the citizens.