Agenda and minutes

Councillor Phil Graham 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 Councillor Valerie Bossman-Quarshie.

Councillor Anjna Khurana substituted for Councillor Valerie Bossman-Quarshie.

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 meetings held on 17 March 2022 and the 7 April 2022 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

The licensing officer reported that two residents had made representations but were not in attendance. The applicant had sent an email with a supporting statement.

The Licensing Authority stated that she had nothing to add to her representation on pages 34 and 35 of the agenda.  She thought it was up to the Sub-Committee to ask what involvement the previous licence holder had with the licence.  The previous licence had been reviewed and revoked and the Sub-Committee needed to ensure that the licence holder had no involvement in the business.  Any conditions that the police may wish to add to the licence, should it be granted, were supported.

The Police stated that the applicant had engaged when the application had been submitted.  The applicant had explained the situation and proposed a number of conditions. She had accepted a condition that the previous licence holder would not be involved with the business. He considered that the Sub-Committee should arrive at a decision after speaking to the applicant.

The Trading Standards officer stated that business rates were still being paid by the previous licensee and the same employees were still working in the premises. Officers attended the premises on the 9 March 2022 and found one of the employees with one packet of illicit tobacco on his person. She considered that there had been no changes since the appeal, she was not satisfied that the business had changed hands and objected to the application on these grounds.

In response to questions, it was noted that the previous revocation had occurred due to a number of issues including, poor management around the sale of high strength alcohol near a drug and drink dependency unit, drug paraphernalia had been discovered next to sweets and there was also an illegal special treatment nail bar in the rear room. The designated premises supervisor was never on the premises. The lease was currently held in the name of the previous licence holder.

The applicant stated that she was a Director in 2016 but following differences of opinion she resigned in 2017. She then had less involvement and as she was separating from her husband she would want this business to be her sole source of income. She would only take over the business if she had an alcohol licence. She would not want to be linked with the previous licence holder and she had new ideas for the management of the business and was aware of how she would help the community. She would change the staff if necessary. She would retrain staff every six months and would train staff as she had been trained at her previous job in Asda. She had accepted all police conditions.  She would not sell miniatures or high strength alcohol. She would be running the premises with her sister who would also be a designated premises supervisor. She wanted to run things differently. She understood the issues around drugs and the special treatment licence. She would be there five days a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The police representative stated that this review had been submitted following an incident on the 13 February, which led to a summary review, and long running management issues as detailed on pages 178-182 of the agenda. On the 13 February an intoxicated member of the public entered the shop and instead of seeking help, staff took matters into their own hands. There was a violent fight and the member of public was stabbed by an employee with, what has been described, a Rambo knife. Another staff member was waving a pole. When police attended, two members of staff had fled the scene and one was caught in possession of drugs. Police had not been called. The police were informed that the knife would be retained and provided but when asked for the knife, staff did not know where it had been. The following day, a member of staff, assaulted another member of the public.  There were clear failures of management, there had been a failure to train staff and notify police when there had been incidents. This was not to be expected where there was a 24 hour licence in operation. There had been no further incidents so for this reason the police had proposed licensing conditions and asked that the hours be modified to framework hours of 8am to 11pm. This was considered to be a fair and reasonable solution. The Sub-Committee were shown CCTV of the incident on the 13 February.

In response to questions, it was noted that the knife had not been recovered, despite the Sub-Committee being informed, at the summary review, that the knife was available in the kitchen of the premises.   There was still an ongoing criminal investigation of the incident awaiting the decision of the crown prosecution service.

The Licensing Authority supported the review and recommended the conditions and the modification to hours. The licensee must ensure that these violent incidents were not repeated. They could undertake not to have knives or weapons in the shop for sale.  The Trading Standards officer said that she supported the review.  Officers had removed illicit alcohol from the premises and they had asked the licensee to join the No Knife Scheme but this had been refused.  They proposed trading standard conditions be added to the licence and would also like a condition that the premises did not sell knives in the future.

In response to questions the trading standards officer stated that the premises had refused to implement the no knife scheme on a visit in January 2022, before the visit in question.  Illicit alcohol had also been discovered on this visit.

The licensees’ representative gave an apology on behalf of the licensee in relation to all of the failings and in particular the incident on the 13 February. Both staff involved no longer worked at the premises. The licensee had taken steps to improve and is willing to change.  An incident log and refusals book were now being maintained.  He was happy to commit to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Chair of the Licensing Committee passed his thanks to the licensing team and committee and legal officers for their work over the past year.  He hoped that all officers would enjoy the coming year with the new Chair of the Licensing Committee.