A cafe has been forced to remove a provocative piece of street art featuring Sadiq Khan in a mankini after the local council branded it ‘contentious’.
Contractors were called in to remove two murals from outside Food Bazaar Café in Gray’s Inn Road in Holborn two weeks ago.
One of the portraits, by renowned graffiti artist Loretto, shows the Mayor of London adopting a suggestive pose clad only in a pair of underwear emblazoned with the Labour rose.
Another mural depicts Prime Minister Theresa May wearing lingerie decorated with EU stars and several Euros stuffed into her stockings.
The mural showed Sadiq Khan adopting a suggestive pose while dressed in an outfit bearing the Labour rose
Explaining their decision to remove the artwork, Camden Council said they considered the work to be ‘contentious’, a bracket that includes anything ‘obscene, racist, political and religious’.
But the owner of the cafe blasted the council over the decision, claiming the majority of passers-by liked it.
Café owner Said Effafali told the Camden New Journal: ‘I explained to them that if one person complains, then 99 still like it.
‘Art is not to everybody’s liking. Of course you’ll offend people, but a majority likes it. We don’t know what’s not offensive any more.’
Mr Effafali said the controversial art had driven up business as hundreds of tourists stopped to take photos.
The plain black wall where the mural of Sadiq Khan was painted over by contractors on behalf of the council
The second mural shows Prime Minister Theresa May wearing a provocative outfit with several Euros stuffed into her stockings
Mr Effafali said he received prior warning from the council of its removal via email this time around. Controversial murals have been a regular occurrence for Mr Effafali and his café this past year, with Loretto dressing the Queen in thigh-high stockings.
The new murals are believed to have been painted over the side of the building just before last Christmas.
A council statement said: ‘Following the appearance of the two large stencil works on the café wall in April this year, we received six reports of “offensive” graffiti over a six-week period.
‘A council officer visited the café owner several times over the following months to discuss the stencil.
‘Using the Keep Britain Tidy scale, the positioning of these has been graded as ‘unsatisfactory’, as they are clearly visible to people passing the location, and at a distance.’
The Food Bazaar cafe in Holborn, London where the two murals were painted on the exterior walls