Agenda and minutes

The Chair introduced the Members of the Sub Committee and welcomed everyone to the hearing.

The Senior Licensing Officer outlined the purpose of the hearing, which was to apply for a new premises licence to sell alcohol for consumption off the premises at 244 Main Road, Duston, between the hours of 06:00 and 23:00 Monday-Sunday inclusive.  The application for the licence had been received on 1 March 2013.

The Sub-Committee were informed that two objections to the application had been received from Mr Labrum and Mr Martin on 4 March 2013 and 11 March 2013 respectively.  The objections were on the grounds of the prevention of public nuisance, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm.

No objections had been received from the Police, Fire Authority or Environmental Health with regard to the application.

Application for a New Premises License

The applicant’s agent, Ms Silvester, stated that the applicant had already offered to place numerous measures in place in respect of the premises and that the Police had offered no objections to the application.  The applicant had been under the impression that the premises had a license for the sale of alcohol when he purchased the shop but the licence had been surrendered by the former owner in November 2012.   The applicant had worked in off licences for three years, mainly in the Ilford area.

Currently, the premises did not open before 7am but the applicant might decide he wished to open earlier to meet the requirements of people going to work before that time and stay open for people returning later from work.  Other shops in the vicinity were already licensed until 11.00pm.  The Police had not objected to the proposed timings.

The applicant would train all his staff in respect of the law relating to the sale of alcohol and provide refresher training, would refuse to serve anyone who was drunk or under the age of 18 or appeared to be buying alcohol for anyone under 18, would operate Challenge 25 and install CCTV  to Police standards and recordings stored for a period of at least 30 days and made available to the Police if required.  He would also place notices on the premises asking customers to leave quietly and would regularly clean up outside the premises.  The applicant would take all steps to ensure the previous poor management of the premises did not recur.

Building works to modernise the premises had not commenced before 9am or extended beyond 6pm to keep disturbance to neighbours to a minimum. 

The applicant had not had any alcohol related problems in the premises where he currently worked.

Questions to the Applicant

In response to questions asked by the representor and the Sub-Committee the applicant stated that:

• There had been no problems, alcohol related or otherwise, at the premises he worked in at Ilford;
• He anticipated that alcohol would account for approximately 20% of the sales from the premises;
• He would be running the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.