Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee – 26 August 2010

Chair: To be appointed
Venue: Function Room 1, Pittwood House, Ashby Road, Scunthorpe
Time: 10aM

AGENDA

  1. Appointment of chair.
  2. Declarations of personal or personal and prejudicial interests, and significant contact with applicants, objectors or third parties (lobbying), if any.
  3. Licensing Act 2003 – Notice of Hearing
    1. Application to Vary a Designated Premises Supervisor – Mrs Lynne Price
  4. Any other items which the chair decides are urgent by reason of special circumstances which must be specified.

MINUTES

The sub-committee met at Pittwood House, Scunthorpe.

873  CHAIR – Resolved – That Councillor L Foster be and he was hereby appointed chair for the meeting.

Councillor L Foster thereupon took the chair.

874  DECLARATIONS OF PERSONAL OR PERSONAL AND PREJUDICIAL INTERESTS AND SIGNIFICANT CONTACT WITH APPLICANTS, OBJECTORS OR THIRD PARTIES (LOBBYING) – There were no declarations of personal or personal and prejudicial interests.

(6)  LICENSING ACT 2003 – APPLICATION TO VARY A DESIGNATED PREMISES SUPERVISOR – MRS LYNNE PRICE – The Service Director Neighbourhood and Environment submitted a report advising members of an application to vary the Designated Premises Supervisor of the Premises Licence PRM0151, Crown Hotel, 209 Ashby High Street, Scunthorpe.

Details of the application were outlined in the report, together with the variation application form as well as documents submitted by Humberside Police objecting to the variation application.

The Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee received a request to vary the procedure for the hearing. Mr Slightholme on behalf of the applicant requested that the time limits be relaxed in order to allow all parties a full and fair hearing.

The sub-committee also received a request to adjourn the hearing.Mr Garfitt requested that the proceedings be adjourned, as Humberside Police had been prejudiced as the applicant had not submitted any supporting papers with their counter notice, nor had they listed Mr O’Grady on the counter notice as a supporting person to appear at the hearing.

The chair invited the council’s legal representative to comment on the request to vary the procedure

The council’s legal representative informed the meeting that variation of the procedure or a decision to adjourn the proceedings was at the sub-committees discretion and any decision should be based upon whether or not the variation and/or adjournment would further assist the sub-committee in reaching a decision.

The meeting was temporarily adjourned to allow members to consider the request to vary the procedure and to adjourn the meeting to a new date.Following the short adjournment, the decision of the sub-committee was as follows –

875  Resolved – (a) The sub-committee was minded not to grant any adjournment as the sub-committee was satisfied that the police would not be sufficiently prejudiced by the applicants witness.  Consequently the sub-committee was accepting the applicants witness as a variation under point four of the procedure, (b) the sub-committee were also granting the variation of cross examination in order to assist the police to gain any information needed to establish their case from the new witness.  This variation was being made in the interests of fairness, and (c) that due to the concerns raised by the applicants solicitor with regard to the time limits and taking in to account the variations, the summary for each party would be increased to ten minutes.

Consequently, the meeting then proceeded.

The applicant’s solicitor as well as a representative of Humberside Police addressed the sub-committee and responded to questions.

The Service Director in his report reminded the sub-committee that the options available to it under the Licensing Act 2003 when considering such applications were:

  • To grant as requested;
  • To reject the application.

Following the summary of the case of the applicant as well as Humberside Police, the meeting was adjourned for deliberation by members and then reconvened when the decision of the sub-committee was stated as follows: –

876  Resolved – The Sub-Committee resolved to grant the application to vary the Designated Premises Supervisor at the Crown Hotel, 209 Ashby High Street, Scunthorpe for the following –

1.  Reason 1

The police evidence submitted at the hearing does not show that exceptional circumstances are such that granting the application would undermine the crime prevention objective.

2.  Reason 2

The evidence produced is historical in nature, as it does not represent the applicant’s conduct during her management at the premises. Therefore, this does not demonstrate an ‘exceptional concern’ enough to undermine the crime prevention objective. There also appears to be no reported incidents during the applicants control at the premises to date.

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