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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 5, Town Hall, Upper Street, N1 2UD. View directions

Contact: Mary Green  020 7527 3005

Items
No. Item

55.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Received from Councillor Marian Spall.

56.

Declaration of substitute members

Minutes:

None.

57.

Declarations of interest

Minutes:

None.

58.

Minutes of the previous meeting pdf icon PDF 124 KB

Minutes:

 

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2017 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

59.

Application for the renewal of a special treatment licence - Golden Health, 128 Junction Road, London N19 5LB pdf icon PDF 839 KB

Minutes:

The Licensing Officer reported that the applicant had submitted a second witness statement, dated 12 December 2017, and members confirmed receipt of this.

 

In response to questions from members, the Licensing Officer reported that the premises were situated in Junction Ward, which was one of her areas of responsibility and she guessed she would have visited the premises in August 2016 and again in August 2017.   The application was received on 23 August 2017.  

 

The applicant’s legal representative stated that Ms Wang had been a Director of the company since 2014 and had been the licensee since.

 

Referring to the Police statement of visits to the premises in March and November 2017, the applicant’s legal representative noted that clients at the premises had confirmed that they had not been offered sexual services. The premises known as Golden Health was the applicant’s livelihood, she attended most days and she understood that it was her responsibility to supervise her staff and to ensure that rules were complied with.  The allegations made by the Police about the premises all came from the website and the veracity of the posts on the website could not be confirmed. Some of the clients at the premises were women. The circumstances of the presence of a female visitor at the premises on the Police visit of 22 July 2017 were explained to the Committee by the applicant.    The applicant had informed her legal representative that she had misunderstood a question asked by the Police at one of their visits when they had asked to see staff records and she had informed them that she did not keep records. In fact, she did keep records and had qualification certificates, licences, IDs and contracts of employment for each of them. These records were kept in a locked drawer at the premises. The staff at the premises wore a uniform and the member of staff who had been seen by the Police at the visit on 11 November 2017, not in uniform, had told her manager (the applicant) that she had been late in arriving at work and had had no time to change into her uniform.  The applicant’s representative added that members of the staff were present at this meeting as witnesses for the applicant and for questions from members.  She drew members’ attendance to the second witness statement produced by the applicant, which attached a price list, a notice for customers and staff payslips. The contract of employment between Golden Health and the staff made it clear that staff could provide body massage only and no other types of massage and, if they did, they could be dismissed. The notice to customers made it clear that no sexual services were offered to clients at the premises. 

 

The applicant’s representative noted that the internet research carried out by the Police had taken place on 7 November 2017 ie after the Licensing Regulatory Committee on 6 November 2017. The posts on the website were described as “unsavoury” and were from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59.

60.

Breach of street trading conditions - Finsbury Square pdf icon PDF 8 MB

Minutes:

Following introductions, the licensee’s authorised assistant, Mr Peter Carter, explained that the licensee, Mrs Ann Carter, was recovering from an operation and had authorised him to act on her behalf.  He presented the letter of authorisation from Mrs Carter to the Committee for information.

 

The Service Manager for Street Trading and Trading Standards introduced his report. Following complaints in November 2016 from the solicitors acting on behalf of the Montcalm Hotel, about the trading practices of the trader on a pitch immediately outside the front of the Hotel, Council officers had brought to the trader’s attention various breaches of street trading conditions. In addition, he referred to a report prepared by the Council’s Compliance Manager on the monitoring of activities at the street trading pitch located in Finsbury Square, EC2. This report was appendix 7 of the agenda. He would defer to his colleagues, the Street Trading Manager and the Compliance Manager, on points of detail. He stated that he was not representing the Montcalm Hotel. The breaches of the street trading conditions by the street trader were detailed in paragraph 3 of the report of the Service Director (Public Protection), specifically conditions 15 (relating to the size of the trading area), condition 16 (relating to approved receptacles), condition 22 (setting up times for trading), condition 56 (relating to commencement of trading) and condition 57 (relating to storage of receptacles). In addition, he suggested that condition 26, which stated that “The operation of your stall must not cause a nuisance to other traders or the general public” had been breached. He outlined the background to the case, which was all set out in the report of the Service Director (Public Protection).   Since early 2017, Council officers had looked at options for relocating the trading pitch, but this had not proved fruitful.  He noted that since the Council’s letter of 1 November 2017, notifying the trader of this meeting, there had been no breach of the conditions, apart from that relating to the size of the receptacle. The licence for this pitch had been in existence for many years and the trading receptacle used to fit into the delineated pitch, but no longer did so. This had now been brought to the Council’s attention. No reasons had been provided by the trader for the periods when the receptacle had not been removed from the pitch in accordance with street trading conditions. It was not the Council’s wish to take any person’s livelihood but, at the same time, traders were required to comply with street trading conditions attached to their licence.

 

Mr Peter Carter informed the Committee that he had used the same van for fourteen and a half years, prior to the establishment of the Montcalm Royal London House Hotel in October 2016 and he could not recall any complaints about the size of his trading van prior to October 2016.   The Street Trading Manager pointed out that scattered sites, such as this, would not be checked on a regular  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60.

61.

Application for the renewal of a special treatment licence - Golden Health, 128 Junction Road, London N19 5LB - exempt appendix

Minutes:

RESOLVED

That the exempt appendix be noted.