The estate agent selling a pub which was closed due to violence fears its reputation might put off potential buyers.

Paramount Investments is worried the Toby Inn's chequered history will discourage people from buying its 47-year lease for £400,000.

The Toby Inn, in Cowley Drive, Woodingdean, Brighton, was closed in July 2006, after a gang of up to 15 men armed with metal poles and baseball ball bats attacked customers.

The thugs trashed the bar in a revenge attack on a regular customer who was driving a car which crashed and injured a man girlfriend.

The previous weekend teenagers refused service were joined by a gang and started smashing the building's windows.

London-based property agency Paramount Investments, which has been hired to sell the pub by owner Admiral Taverns, says it could be converted to flats if it is not bought as a boozer.

A Paramount Investments spokesman said: "If no-one from the hospitality industry steps forward to buy this pub, it could cease to be a pub at all.

"Local opinion is divided, with some residents believing the Toby has always been a magnet for trouble, while others wanted it restored as Woodingdean's local pub.

"The history might be a sticking point but lots of pubs with a troubled past have been reopened successfully with a new image.

"It is ideally located because it's in the middle of Woodingdean surrounded by houses and a row of shops."

Sussex Police issued a 24-hour closure immediately after the brawl which was enforced by Brighton and Hove City Council's licensing committee.

The pub was the first in the city to be permanently shut under the Licensing Act 2003, which came fully into force in November 2005. If the pub remains closed, it will leave The Downs Hotel in Warren Road, Woodingdean, as the area's only boozer.

The news has emerged as new figures confirmed that the smoking ban had sparked a rise in noise complaints.

Figures released by Brighton and Hove City Council reveal that requests for the noise nuisance team has risen by 12 per cent this year.

Of the 338 calls made regarding problems in the last 12 months, a third related to smokers outside of pubs.

Green councillors last week called for money to be invested in the noise team.

Currently the weekend night noise patrol operates on Friday and Saturday nights between 10pm and 3am.

Councillor Georgia Wrighton asked for the scheme to be extended to even later at weekends and on week nights as part of the council's budget.

But council leader Brian Oxley said he believed the service was performing well.

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