Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

RESOLVED that a Vice-Chair was not required on this occasion.

There were none.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officer before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

There were none.

There was none.

These were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Chair drew attention to the licensing procedure, copies of which had been made available those attending the meeting.

Applicant: Co-operative Group Food Ltd, represented by Richard Arnot (Ward Hadaway Solicitors) and Angela Bain (Operations Manager)

Other Persons: Patricia Griffin (Foxhill Point Community Group) and Mr and Mrs Cogdell (local residents)

The parties confirmed that they had received and understood the licensing procedure.

The Senior Licensing Officer summarised the application. She explained that the applicant was seeking an additional hour for the sale of alcohol on Mondays to Saturdays and an additional 3½ hours on Sundays. The applicant was also seeking the removal of embedded Licensing Act 1964 conditions and the removal of any existing conditions that conflicted with the application. No new opening hours to replace those on the current licence of 08:00 – 20.00 had been specified.

Representations had been received from the Foxhill Point Community Group and local residents relating to the licensing objectives of the prevention of crime and disorder and the prevention of public nuisance.  Additional information had been circulated since the publication of the agenda, namely a petition organised by the Foxhill Point Community Group, a copy of the judgment in the case of Matthew Taylor v Manchester City Council and TCG Bars Limited and a copy of an email from a Bath and North East Somerset Environmental Health Officer provided by the applicant.

Mr Arnot stated the case for the applicants. He said the Co-operative Group owned 3,900 local stores and had long experience in the sale of alcohol. Each region of the Group had a risk manager, who liaised with local communities. He stated that if the Group acted outside its policies with regard to age-related products this would constitute a risk for the Group, and so one of the risk manager’s responsibilities was to ensure that stores followed the procedures laid down for these products. He stated that there was a rigorous staff training programme and that all staff had two refresher courses per year regardless of their length of service. All staff received basic training and some were personal licence holders. There was a “buddy” system for mentoring new staff and a “lock down” facility on tills, so that individual members of staff could be prevented from selling alcohol. There was a Challenge 25 policy in force and, whenever the bar code for an age-restricted product was scanned at the till, the sales assistant was required to certify that the customer was over 25. The identity of the sales assistant was recorded, so that the stores supervisor could monitor the pattern of sales for each member of staff.

He stated that the store in Bradford Road had traded for so many years that it was difficult to ascertain when it had commenced trading, that the store had only one entrance and exit and that spirits and high-value alcoholic products were stored behind the counter; wines and beers were stored at the left side of the counter on the side of the store furthest away from the door.

He stated that it was natural for a convenience store to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.