Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Licensing Officer.

Mrs K Miller, the Licensing Officer presented a report setting out the application for the review of a premises licence for “Angola ’76 at Mustons Lane, Shaftesbury. The application had been made by Dorset Council as the Local Authority and representations had also been received and remained unresolved.  Therefore, members were advised that a hearing had to be held to determine the application.

The sub-committee were informed that following the receipt of complaints, the service of a warning letter a noise abatement notice by the Council’s Environmental Health Service had been made.  There had also been a refusal for planning permission and enforcement action on the site.

The sub-committee was asked to note that there had been representations received from ten interested parties and six of those related to three of the four licensing objectives. Three other representations had been made in support of the venue along with the receipt of a petition which had been organised by the premises management.

Members were advised that a Mr John Morgan had been the licence premises holder, but this had recently been transferred to Mr and Mrs Francis and they had been running the premises for approximately a year.

The Licensing Officer advised the sub-committee of their powers in determining the application and reminded them that they must give clear reasons for their decision.

The Chairman invited all parties to ask questions of the Licensing Officer, but there were none at this stage of the meeting.

The Chairman welcomed Ms A Powell, Licensing Team Leader, acting on behalf of the Local Authority in bringing the review to the sub-committee for their consideration.

The Licensing Team Leader reported that this review had been applied for on the grounds of the prevention of public nuisance as a result of the Licensing Authority being satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a review of the premises.

The Licensing Review Guidance which was set out on page 41 (of the agenda document pack) at 11.1 stated “that reviews were a key protection for communities where problems occurred after the grant of the licence”.  At 11.5 of the guidance it stated that “the licensing authority could review a licence if it was concerned and wanted to intervene early without waiting for representations from others”.  The review focussed on two areas of nuisance:-

·         Nuisance from people leaving the premises both from noise and urination and vomiting; and

·         Music noise

The Licensing Team Leader continued that the nuisance from people leaving the premises was evidenced by the complaints received and substantiated by the video evidence which showed that some the noise clearly came from people leaving the premises, and was not all caused by passing pedestrians.

She continued that the nuisance from the music noise was evidenced by the complaints, could be heard in some of the videos, but was even more clearly evidenced from the acoustic engineers report.

Members were further advised that whilst the planning refusal could not be used as a reason for the review,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51