Agenda and minutes

Councillor Alex Diner welcomed everyone to the meeting and officers and members introduced themselves.  The procedure for the conduct of the meeting was outlined.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Diarmaid Ward and Aysegul Erdogan.

Councillor Osh Gantly substituted for Councillor Diarmaid Ward and Councillor Nick Wayne substituted for Councillor Aysegul Erdogan.

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)     Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f) Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

The order of business would be as the agenda.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 19 June 2017 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings, subject to the following amendments, and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

Page 4, paragraph 1 – Deletion of the comment ‘and had asked that it be disregarded’.

Page 5, last paragraph –

The addition of the word ‘some’ residents were not happy with an application beyond 11pm.

The addition of the sentence ‘Some residents said that they would be happy with core hours’.

Insertion of the words ‘but stated that the hours would be looked at’ following ‘ the applicant had never stated that she would accept these hours’.

Page 6 paragraph 2 –

Following the words ‘tabled submission’ additional sentence to read.  ‘Gareth Hughes stated that this was his fault and not that of the applicant.

Page 6 paragraph 3 –

Change ‘Residents’ to ‘A resident’ stated that the applicant had bristled at the meeting.

Page 6, last paragraph, second sentence before resolution to read ‘This application was not a smokescreen but a female venue with the support of the Mayor of London’.

The licensing officer reported that, following a request from the licence holder, officers had visited the premises and found that all proposed conditions were being complied with except for the high strength alcohol condition.  The licensee had stated that he would be removing high strength alcohol.  Licensing officers gave the licensee a week notice of the visit for the licensee to comply with the new conditions.

The trading standards officer reported that they had acted on information received.  He stated tha the list of items in the report were believed to be non-duty paid.  The licensee had tried to justify a small amount of the stock with invoices although the majority of stock was without an invoice.  If alcohol was non duty paid it was cheating the government of tax which paid for essential services, other businesses would be undercut and also the public would not willingly buy non-duty paid alcohol.  The contents of alcohol sold could also be contaminated which was a risk to the public, although he was not saying that this was the case in this instance.  It was a special responsibility to hold an alcohol licence and the licensee made a deliberate decision to buy from a van.  He asked that the licence be modified with additional conditions and recommended a minimum suspension of four weeks.

In response to questions it was noted that the alcohol was believed to be non-duty paid but not counterfeit, the amount of alcohol was significant and the recommendation to suspend for four weeks was in line with previous decisions.  The trading standards officer would be pleased if the suspension was longer or if there was revocation.

The police officer stated that management standards were not those that would be expected. It was clear that the licensee had purchased alcohol from a non-reputable source.  There was no evidence that youths were attracted to the venue because it sold to underage.  The CCTV would need to be updated and he recommended a period of suspension of four weeks in order to enable the CCTV installation and for the licensee to learn about his licence conditions and the licensing objectives.

The licensee apologised for his mistake and stated that he was not going to buy again from a van.  He had brought the invoices with him and the CCTV was up to date.  He stated that four weeks was too long to be suspended.

In response to questions the licensee stated that he had purchased the alcohol from one of his friends and he did not bring the invoices until three weeks later. His friend usually brought the invoices at the same time.  The licensee stated that the trading standards officer had not believed him about the invoices.  The trading standards officer attending the meeting informed the Sub-Committee that there was some discrepancy as to whether the invoices were bona fide.  The licensee stated he would not buy from vans anymore. He said this was the first time that he had purchased goods  ...  view the full minutes text for item 169.

The Sub-Committee noted that this item had been withdrawn.

The Sub-Committee noted that this item had been withdrawn.

The Sub-Committee noted that this item had been withdrawn.