Agenda and draft minutes

The Licensing Panel considered the appointment of Chairman for the meeting.

Resolved:

That Councillor Baker be appointed Chairman for the meeting.

Members are asked to declare any interests in the items under consideration and in doing so state:-

(1) the type of interest concerned

(2) the nature of the interest concerned; and

(3) whether they have or have not sat on a Planning Committee which has previously considered a planning application in respect of a licensed premises which is also subject to consideration for a premises licence as part of the agenda for this meeting.

If any Member requires advice on declarations of interests, they are advised to contact the Head of Democratic Governance in advance of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest on this occasion.

The Chairman of the Panel will summarise the procedure and announce the equal maximum amount of time for each party to speak for the hearing.

A.         Items 1 and 4 (b) will be undertaken in private session by the Panel and not in the Meeting Room.

B.         Items 2, 3 and 4(a) will be recommended to the Panel to be held in public.

C.         The Panel may decide to exclude the public from all or part of a hearing where it considers that the public interest in so doing outweighs the public interest in the hearing, or that part of the hearing, taking place in public. (This includes a party and any person assisting or representing a party)

The Chairman explained the procedure for the meeting including that an equal time limit of twenty minutes had been allocated for all parties.

To consider an application to vary a Premises Licence for Kanee Convenience Store, 58 Dickson Road, Blackpool, FY1 2AJ.

A. Application and representations submitted. To consider the attached report.

B. Determination of the application to vary a Premises Licence – Kanee Convenience Store.

The Licensing Panel will indicate how the decision is to be communicated to interested parties.

The Licensing Panel considered an application to vary the Premises Licence for Kanee Convenience Store, 58 Dickson Road, PL0072, to extend the terminal hour for off sales of alcohol by one hour from 23.00 to 00:00 Monday to Saturday and to adjust the trading times on Sunday from 10:00 to 22:30 to match the trading hours in the rest of the week which would change from 10:00 to 22:30 to 08:00 to 00:00.

Mr Mark Marshall was in attendance representing the case on behalf of Mr. Perashath Selveraja, The Director of Kanee Convenience Store, who was also present. Objections had been received from Lancashire Constabulary prior to the application being submitted and The Licensing Panel’s attention was drawn to the additional conditions offered in regards to CCTV and a proof of age policy.

The applicant Mr. Perashath Selveraja was described as an experienced operator who had directed the business for 6 years with having not drawn the attention of the licensing authority or brought the reputation of his business into disrepute. Mr. Perashath Selveraja had worked on improving the existing knowledge and training of his staff prior to submitting the application and that he and his staff actively refuse sales of alcohol to persons they feel would be problematic. Following on from these additional steps put in place, Mr Marshall proposed that to extend the premises terminal hour alongside these extra steps would be a reasonable request for the panel to consider, furthermore a licensed individual would be on the premises at all times which Mr Mark Marshall felt would further reduce the possible effect that late night sales of alcohol from Kanee Convenience Store would have on the crime and incidents of anti-social behaviour in the area. Mr Marshall felt that instances of crime and anti-social behaviour are as a result of other, wider issues that exist in the area and that it was not necessarily fair to view these alcohol related in relation to a Kanee Convenience Store extending its terminal hour to match the hours of other premises nearby or that late night sales of alcohol sold from such off-licences were to blame for these crime and anti-social behaviour statistics.

Mr Marshall concluded by advising the Panel that Temporary Event Notices (TEN) had recently been applied for in June 2022 running for a total twenty one days to test the proposed later opening hours which had passed without incident. He therefore considered that there would be no adverse impact on the Licensing  Objectives if the extended hours were approved and so invited the Panel to grant the application.

Sergeant Nat Cox presented the objection on behalf of Lancashire Constabulary, Sergeant Cox drew attention to recent police statistics that indicated Blackpool had high levels of alcohol related harm for the size of the population and that in particular there exists widespread deprivation within the Central Wards of the town, Claremont and Talbot. There are already approximately 179 licensed premises in Blackpool, half of which are located in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.