Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced the Councillors and Officers present. Mr Williams introduced those present from Elysium.

None

Introduction

The Chair invited the Senior Licensing Officer to introduce the report. She explained that on 24^th February 2014 Northampton Borough Council had received an application for a review of the Premises Licence Number PL0427 in relation to Elysium, at 63 Horseshoe Street, Northampton. The application had been submitted by Northamptonshire Police.

This application for a review had been submitted on the grounds of two of the Licensing Objectives:

1)    The Prevention of Crime and Disorder.

2)    Public Safety

Evidence had been provided with the application, by the Police, to support this review and this had been circulated to all parties concerned.

The Senior Licensing Officer explained that Northamptonshire Police were represented by Sgt Mark Worthington, who would address the sub-committee first and put forward the case for the review of the licence. This would be followed by any questions that the sub-committee may wish to ask the applicant, led by the Chair. The respondent would then be invited to ask any questions.

She added that the respondent was represented by Ben Williams from Kings Chambers, would then be given the opportunity to answer the application for the review, followed by any questions the sub-committee may wish to ask. The two Premises Licence holders Simon Thomson & Cheryl Forbes Stanford were also in attendance. The applicant would then be invited to ask any questions. There would be a summing up by the applicant and the respondent before the sub-committee retired to make their decision.

The Senior Licensing Officer had circulated by consent of all parties an information sheet detailing those premises currently operating post 03:00.  This was in respect of the last permitted hours for the sale of alcohol and not the opening hours of the premises. The sub-committee was asked to note that Lost was in fact not operating at present.

Application for Review

The Chair invited Sgt Worthington to present the application for Review on behalf of Northamptonshire Police. He explained that Elysium was a nightclub with a capacity of 610 persons with the main entrance  on Horseshoe Street, Northampton.

Sgt Worthington apologised for the order of the evidence bundle. It appeared that pages 6 to 97 are in reverse order. He explained that some incidents listed in the original review submission had no crimes associated with them and these were taken from the daily incident logs and only feature in the Police database print at pages 78 to 67 of the bundle.

Pages marked I in the bundle at p.66 – 22 relate to a violent episode in the club in Sept 2012. This incident occurred on Sun 2nd Sept, at 04.50 and was a large fight where weapons (including knuckle dusters & bottles) were used and serious injury resulted. This incident had prompted the Police to consider a review and even an expedited review, however there was a reasonable working relationship with the Club and the security company involved, so a meeting had been called  to discuss the issues and how best they can be mitigated. The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.