Agenda and draft minutes

To elect a Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Williams was elected Chair of the meeting.

The Chair to arrange introductions and to explain the procedure to be followed during the meeting.

The Chair, Members of the Sub-Committee, Officers and others present introduced themselves and the Chair explained the procedure to be followed for the meeting.

Councillor Williams declared a personal interest by virtue of being the Gloucestershire County Council lead Cabinet Member for funding P3, an organisation that had made a representation regarding the application.

To consider the report of the Corporate Director which details an application by Mr Ramachandran Krishnashankar of Sedoos Stop, 25, London Road, Gloucester to vary an existing premises licence under section 34 of the Licensing Act 2003.

Licensing Officer’s report

The Licensing and Enforcement Officer presented the report which detailed an application by Mr Ramachandran Krishnashankar under section 34 of the Licensing Act 2003 to vary an existing premises licence at Sedoo’s Stop, 25, London Road.

She reported that an application had been received on 14 November 2016 and during the consultation period it became apparent that the applicant had not sent copies of the application to all the relevant responsible authorities and the public notice on the premises was not displayed as prescribed. As a consequence the consultation period was restarted on 30 November 2016 and continued until 27 December 2016.

She advised that during the consultation period Sedoo’s Stop had failed a test purchase for alcohol carried out by the police on 10 December 2016. The member of staff concerned was issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice and the Premises Licence Holder was issued with a warning letter, attached at Appendix 2 to the report.

She noted that the applicant had applied to vary the hours for the sale of alcohol from 06.00 – 23.00hrs every day to 24 hours every day.

Sixteen individual representations had been received together with a petition containing 13 signatures opposed to the application. A further representation had been received which was neutral. The representations were attached as Appendix 5 to the report.

A representation had been received from Gloucestershire Constabulary which was attached as Appendix 6 to the report.

There were no questions of the Officer.

Gloucestershire Constabulary

The Constabulary was represented by Michael Griffiths (Counsel) David McFarlane and Jaine Simner (Licensing Manager).

Mr Griffiths circulated additional material with the consent of the applicant’s representative.

He noted that the application form (Appendix 1 to the report) listed additional measures which the Applicant proposed to take to promote all four Licensing Objectives as a result of the proposed variation. He advised Members that these were identical to the mandatory conditions listed in the Applicant’s existing licence (Appendix 3 to the report) issued in 2013.

He referred Members to the report of Charlotte Parry in respect of the test purchase and noted there had been no challenge, no proof of age and there was no refusals book available. A warning letter  had been issued.

He referred to the formal representation made by the Police as a Responsible Authority and noted that anti-social behaviour and alcohol-related incidents were already high in the vicinity where there were a number of other premises selling alcohol.

He referred to the report of conversations held with a number of key workers at Newton House which offered a safe supported environment for homeless people with complex or chaotic support or care needs. He noted that Newton House, along with other similar establishments had a significant number of clients with addictions to drink or drugs.

He also referred to the representation made by Mr Kinghorn of Gloucester City Mission (Appendix 5 to the report) that the ability to purchase high strength lager for 24 hours each day would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.