Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

Apologies were received from Councillor Gabriel Batt, for whom Councillor Anthony Clare substituted, and from Councillor Roger Symonds, for whom Councillor Andrew Furse substituted.

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.

Approval of these Minutes was deferred, because Councillor Rigby had been the only member present at the meeting of June 2013.

The Chair will, if required, explain the review procedure.

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

Applicant for Review: Bath and North East Somerset Council, represented by Terrill Wolyn (Senior Licensing Officer)

Responsible Authorities:

Avon and Somerset Police, represented by Martin Purchase (Licensing Officer) and PC Philip Millen

Environmental Protection, represented by Nigel Shire (Environmental Health Officer)

Licence Holder: Punch Taverns plc, represented by Matthew Phipps (TLT Solicitors), Jennifer Trethewey (Designated Premises Supervisor) and Kevin Day-Mc Donnell (Punch Taverns Partnership Development Manager).

Witness for the Licence Holder: Mr Frank Reynolds

Other Persons:

Sue Dicks (B&NES Community Safety Manager)

Cllr Jane Lewis (Midsomer Norton Town Council)

Cllr Michael Evans (B&NES Council and Midsomer Norton Town Council)

Cllr Linda Dunford (Midsomer Norton Town Council)

Terry Andrews (local resident)

Annette Andrews (local resident)

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

The Licensing Officer summarised the application. She explained that the review had been brought by the Licensing Authority because of persistent breaches of licence conditions, which were undermining the licensing objectives of the prevention of crime and disorder, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm, and because of the attitude of the former Designated Premises Supervisor during inspection visits. The application was seeking a reduction in the terminal hour for all licensable activities to 23:30 with the premises closing to the public at midnight. Additional information had been circulated since the publication of the agenda, including proposals from the licence holder to modify the licence as follows:

• a reduction in the terminal hour for licensable activities on Friday and Saturday from 02:00 to 00:30, thus bringing the terminal hour on these days in line with those for Thursday and Sunday

• a closing hour of 01:00 the following morning

• subject to the terminal hour  for licensable activities being no later than 00:30, the removal of the last entry/no re-entry condition

• the condition on off-sales to be amended from “no open containers of alcohol to leave the premises” to “all alcohol sold for consumption off the premises shall be in its original, sealed container”

The Senior Licensing Officer stated that case for the applicant for review. She submitted that the facts spoke for themselves. The Licensing Authority prided itself on the relationships it had with communities, responsible authorities and the licensed trade and did not initiate enforcement action lightly. In December 2011, following a variation application, the premises had been granted an additional hour for licensable activities on Fridays and Saturdays. Since then licence conditions had been repeatedly breached. The licence holder had admitted there had been breaches. There had been dialogue over the last 18 months with all 3 Designated Premises Supervisors (DPS), letters and visits to the premises, but nothing had worked to prevent the breaches occurring. Breaches had continued even after multi-agency visits to the premises, whereby the DPS had appeared entirely disinterested in the impact the breaches were having on local residents. The application for the review had not been made to punish, but to restore the balance between the interests of the Greyhound and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.