The Lord of Wine, at 33 Western Road, Hove, has a licence to sell alcohol daily from 7am to 11pm.
The owner Erkut Ogut, 41, asked Brighton and Hove City Council to allow the shop to trade until 3am from Monday to Friday and 4am on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Sussex Police and the council licensing team objected to the application when it went before a licensing panel made up of three councillors.
The police and council licensing team both said the business had previously breached the conditions of its licence and was in part of Brighton and Hove where tougher licensing rules apply.
At the hearing on Wednesday, July 9, police licensing officer Claire Abdelkader said Mr Ogut had not offered any exceptional reasons why his business should have extended hours, contrary to council policy.
She said a licence check carried out on Wednesday, June 4, found that most conditions were being followed but staff could not operate the CCTV system. And records were not up-to-date.
Ms Abdelkader added that Mr Ogut had not considered the risks and challenges of selling alcohol into the early hours.
A few new licences to sell alcohol have been issued in the busiest parts of Brighton and Hove but, Ms Abdelkader said, the trading hours were limited or covered “exceptional offerings” such as drinks from a specific geographical area.
The panel was told that in the past year, Sussex Police had recorded 3,157 incidents within a 400-yard radius of the business.
Of those, 818 were crimes – mainly violence (30 per cent), theft (25 per cent) and criminal damage (10 per cent).
Ms Abdelkader asked the panel to refuse the application.
Council licensing officer Donna Lynsdale said there were no exceptional circumstances and also asked the panel to refuse the application.
Mr Ogut said he wanted to expand his hours because of the economic situation. He said that neighbouring off-licences had 3am and 5am licences.
The decision letter from the council said: “The panel appreciates the economic reasons for this application but do not consider that any exceptional circumstances to depart from the special policy have been shown.
“The previous breaches of conditions do not give the panel confidence that the applicant could manage the risk involved in granting such an extension and does not consider a security condition would be adequate or able to deal with risk … especially once customers had left the premises.
“Overall, the panel consider that granting this variation is very likely to add to the cumulative impact of problems already in the area and thus undermine the licensing objectives.”
The panel was made up of three councillors – Sam Parrott, Kerry Pickett and Alison Thomson.
Mr Orgut has 21 days to appeal against the decision.
Source link
[Featured]
[Just In]
