Agenda and minutes

The Chair introduced the Committee and welcomed everyone to the meeting.  Further papers were circulated by Northants Police.

Outline of the Application by the Licensing Officer

The Licensing Officer outlined the application for a variation to the premises licence as set out in the report and highlighted the request to increase the hours of licensing activities to 24 hours, seven days a week. She also summarised the objections that had been received from Northants Police on the grounds of the Licensing Objective of Crime and Disorder and Mr Tyrrell on the grounds of crime and disorder and public nuisance.  She then explained the procedure for the hearing.

Application for the Review

Representing the Applicant, Mr Botkai confirmed that the application was for the variation of extending the licence.  The licence allowed the sale of alcohol between 8am and 11pm and there were limited conditions on the licence which could have expired.  The premises were a large BP Connect store and were a franchise with HKS.  The shop doors closed from 11pm until 5 or 6am, depending on the manager, during which time the customers were unable to enter into the store and paid through a night hatch.  Northampton Borough Council Statement of Licensing Policy stated that a shop should be able to sell alcohol to match when it was open and the applicant wanted to do this. The Secretary of State Guidance stated that the Licensing Act should not be used as a mechanism for controlling anti-social behaviour where other legislation existed to control this. They had received the objections and had communicated with the Police although it had not been resolved.  They had been prepared for conditions to be applied to the variation of the licence which the Police had agreed to with the amendment of operating the night hatch between the hours of 2300 and 0500 although, the Police still objected to the application as a whole.  The conditions were circulated at this point.

Mr Botkai confirmed that the store had adopted the ‘Challenge 25’ whereas the conditions were 21 or older and the Refusals book and Incidents book was managed and well maintained.  The night hatch closing time was amended to 0500 hours to provide the store more flexibility on their opening hours.  The Police had raised objections based on statistics and incidents in the area which they had allocated to these premises.  In the statement from Sergeant Worthington it referred to 43 incidents between July 2009 and July 2010 which consisted of 12 incidents that related to fraud and forgery which were not alcohol related, 10 thefts although there was no indication of what the theft related to.  He considered that 10 thefts over a period of 12 months as being very low.  There had been three incidents of violence against a person and alcohol had not been a contributory factor, one road incident and criminal damage.  He considered that very little could be attributed to this application.  He believed that the Petrol Station was the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.