Agenda item

To consider two Objection Notices to a Temporary Event Notice (TEN) for Neon in Bridport

The Licensing Officer introduced the report to consider objections to a Temporary Event Notice (TEN) submitted by Mr Long (the Applicant) for New Year’s Day.  The application was attached at appendix 1 of the report.

Objections had been received from Dorset Police and Dorset Council Environmental Protection.

The Licensing Officer detailed the options available to the Sub-Committee.

There were no questions from the Sub-Committee, the Applicant or the Responsible Authorities.

The Applicant was then given the opportunity to present his case to the Sub-Committee.  Following an application for a TEN in October that was not granted the Applicant advised that he had taken on board the comments from that meeting.  He had implemented sound reduction measures to address the noise nuisance and since then there had hardly been any complaints from Environmental Protection regarding noise.   New Year’s Eve would be a busy and noisy night in the town and he felt it would be fair for Neon to be on a level playing field with the other venues.  In January he hoped to apply for a variation of his Licence as previously suggested by Dorset Police.

Attendees were given the opportunity to ask questions of the Applicant.

In response to those questions the Sub-Committee heard that the Applicant had applied for 4 TENs in the last 12 months. Entry to the venue was not allowed after 01:00, with the exception of re-entry, bar staff from other venues and emergency services personnel, who they allowed in after they had finished work.  No-one else was allowed entry after 01:00.  This would also apply on New Year’s Eve.

The capacity of the venue was 120 which was monitored by door staff with clickers.  The resident DJ was booked until 04:00 on 1 January, and there would be additional door staff on duty and the side door/alley would be patrolled and monitored.  The Applicant hoped that the activities would be finished by 05:30 and partly his reasoning for the extended timings was to ensure flexibility for customers to leave gradually so there would not be an influx of people all leaving the various venues at the same time.

There were no more questions and all parties were given the opportunity to sum up their case and the Sub-Committee members retired to make their decision.