Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Customer and Digital.

The Licensing Sub-Committee considered the application to vary a premises licence under Section 34 of the Licensing Act 2003, to which relevant representations had been received.

The Applicant Samuel Wells was in attendance along with Wendy Boyd, the Applicant’s Partner’s Mother who was responsible for day-to-day running of the premises, and Environmental Health Officer Paul Lee was in attendance to make his representations to the Sub-Committee.

The Council’s Enforcement Team Leader for Licensing informed the Sub-Committee that the premises had benefitted from a premises licence since September 2013, and in December 2019 applications were received to transfer the premises licence and vary the designated premises supervisor at the premises into the name of the current licence holder. On 17 February 2020, an application to vary the premises licence was made by the licence holder seeking to replace the existing plan with an updated layout with new bar, extend permitted hours for licensable activity and opening hours, and proposing a number of additional measures as conditions in the operating schedule. It was understood that following consultation with Lancashire Constabulary, the Applicant agreed to a number of additional conditions.

On 09/03/20, a representation was received from an Environmental Health Officer regarding the likely effect of the grant of the variation on the promotion of the prevention of public nuisance objective. Members noted that no other relevant representations were received.

In response to Members’ questions, it was noted that other than a noise complaint to Environmental Health in January 2020, no problems had been reported at the premises since the original licence was granted in 2013. The premises had changed since that time and was now a licenced café and was proposed to become a bar/pub in the evenings.

Wendy Boyd advised that the extension to Sunday hours was requested in order to be able to serve dinners with alcohol and close at a suitable hour. She stated that although the application requested an extension to 23.00, 22.00 would be acceptable. In response to a clarification from Members, Ms Boyd confirmed that the extension to hours for retail of alcohol and recorded music were a mistake and they were seeking to have overall weekly hours in line with Monday to Saturday to 23.00 and Sunday to 22.00 being suitable.

With regards to how the premises had mitigated the noise as a result of the complaint received in January, Ms Boyd confirmed that this had been a one-off lock in for a family party and they had not realised how the noise travelled. They had since spoken with the resident and if things were too loud music was turned off or people asked to leave. She also confirmed that lock ins had not happened since and would not happen again. She advised that no technology or soundproofing had been installed but had been looking into it recently and confirmed that they had another application with the Council to change the use of the premises from a café to a bar.

In response to questions  ...  view the full minutes text for item 103