Transcript

this meeting of the licensing subcommittee. The subcommittee today is made up of Councillors Andrew Bolton, Jackie Davies and Noel Hajj-Michael. The first item of business is the appointment of a chair for the meeting. May I ask subcommittee members to nominate the chair? Yes, I would like to nominate Councillor Bolton, please. I would like to second that. Thank you, that's agreed. Councillor Bolton is in the chair. Thank you, Councillor. Thanks very much, Alice. Thank you, Councillors. Good morning to everyone. This meeting is being broadcast live, recorded and will be made available on the council's YouTube channel. The agenda is available on the council's website by following the links to your council and decision-making consultations and surveys and then committee agendas and minutes. The quorum for this meeting is three members, that's three Councillors, and all will need to be present at all times. If any subcommittee member or the legal advisor lose connection, we'll pause to allow them to rejoin as soon as possible. To reduce feedback, could everyone please mute their microphone while not speaking? After the subcommittee has heard the submission, I'll ask if members have any questions on the submission. Members can also indicate that they wish to speak by using the chat function, but please do not use the chat function to ask questions of officers or members. And remember that all meeting participants on the video call will be able to see what has been entered into the chat. Please also keep mobile phones in silent mode or switched off during the meeting. So as you heard, I'm Councillor Andrew Bolton and I'll be chairing the subcommittee today. I'll introduce the other participants in the meeting, please. We have Councillor Jacqui Davies, good morning. Good morning. We have Councillor Noel Hadjimichael. Good morning. We have Guy Bishop, the legal advisor. Good morning, Paul. We have Nicky Bentley, the licensing officer. Come on in. We have Hannah McCully, who's from the Metropolitan Police, and she's the licensing officer. Good morning. Hello. Millicent Wilde, Metropolitan Police Council. Good morning. Hello. We have Richard Odell, environmental protection officer for the council. Good morning. Good morning to you. And we have the applicant, Mr Hyun Joon Kim, and he is joined by two colleagues. And we also, of course, have a member of Democratic Services and Attendance who's Alice, as you've just seen. So a little bit of housekeeping, first of all. Declarations of interests. Does any member of the subcommittee, that's the three councillors, have a pecuniary interest, a non-registrable interest, or any other registrable interest to declare in relation to the application today? And I don't. No, I don't either. And I don't either. Nope, nobody has. Can we confirm, please, the minutes of the meeting held on the 4th of June, 2024, as a correct record? Yes, confirmed. Thank you. And I'll sign them at a later date. A bit more on the procedure. So the parties have already been notified of the usual procedures for licensing hearings as set out on pages four to six of the agenda. Paragraph 57 on page five of the agenda pack deals with notification of the decision following the subcommittee's deliberations. And this will firstly be confirmed by email later today. And full details and reasons will follow within five working days. Are there any objections to proceeding on the basis of those procedures? I don't have any. Nope, it doesn't look like we have any objections to that. So we move on to the hearing itself now, which the licensing officer will tell us about. But it concerns 601 PM Limited, 38 High Street, New Maldon, KT34HE. So I'll now call on the licensing officer, Nicky Bentley, to introduce the report on the application. Thanks, Nicky. Thank you. Thank you, Chen. This application for a full variation to a premises license relates to 601 PM Limited, 38 High Street, New Maldon, KT34HE. The application was made on the 15th of April, 2024, by Mr. Hyun Young Kim on behalf of 601 PM Limited. The application seeks a variation to the existing premises license for two reasons. The first is to permit an extension to the licensable area, which is an addition of two karaoke rooms on the first floor of the premises. A copy of this plan was sent to all responsible authorities, however unfortunately was not included in the agenda report. For clarity during my presentation, my colleague will present and share this proposed plan on screen for you to view. The second part is an increase to the hours for opening times and license for activities, and these include regulated entertainment, live music, and the sale by retail of alcohol on sales only. These are all to be extended to Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 1.30 AM, and Sundays 10 AM to 1.30 AM. The venue currently benefits from a premises license which authorizes the following license for activities on the ground floor only. Regulated entertainment, live music indoors only every day from 601 PM to 10 PM. The sale by retail of alcohol on sales only Sunday to Thursday from 10 AM to 11 PM, Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to midnight. The current opening hours are Sunday to Thursday 6 AM to 11 PM, and Friday and Saturday benefit from a 6 AM to midnight. Relevant pages of the application form are attached in Annex 1, the current license is attached in Annex 2, and the proposed changes to the hours of operation and license for activities are laid out in Annex 3. I can confirm that the applicant has advertised the application by way of public notice displayed at the premises and in a local newspaper. The application has been made available on the Council's website for a full consultation period. I confirm that all responsible authorities received a copy of the application. Two representations were subsequently received, and these were from the Police for the Prevention of Crime Disorder licensing objective, and the Council's Noise Officer for the Prevention of Public Nuisance licensing objective, and these are attached in Annex 4. In accordance with the Council's licensing policy, 261 addresses were consulted in writing and informed that an application had been received. Seven valid representations were received from other persons. The representations make reference to matters that relate to the prevention of crime and disorder, the prevention of public nuisance, and the public safety licensing objectives, and copies of these are attached in Annex 5. You will note on my report that one representation has submitted video evidence to support their objection to the application. I can confirm that these four videos have been shared for the Committee and the applicant to view in private. However, as the footage could identify individuals, it cannot be published during this hearing. A map showing the approximate location of the premises is attached in Annex 6, and some photographs of the premises and the surrounding area are attached for your information at Annex 7. In considering the report, you are required to take into account the Secretary of State's guidance, issued under Section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003, our licensing policy, and the licensing objectives. The Council's licensing policy was reviewed in July 2021, and it now includes some guidance on licensing and trading hours, and these guideline hours are included with Annex 8. You are asked to determine the application, have in regard to the representations received, and any evidence heard at the hearing, in line with the options set out in paragraph 17 of the Licensing Report. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Nicky. Councillors, do you have any questions on Nicky's report? No, thank you. I think I'll save mine for the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. No, and I don't either, so thank you very much, Nicky. We now move on to the applicant's submission, and I'd like to call now on the applicant to give a summary of the application. That's Mr Hyun Jung Kim, and he has two colleagues with him. Now, paragraph 47 on page 4 of the Agenda Pack deals with the length of time an applicant can speak, and on this occasion, the applicant has up to 10 minutes to present the submission, and Alice of Democratic Services will advise you when you have one minute left, and when your time is up. So, Mr Kim, over to you, please, to run through your application for us. [Speaks Korean] Okay. So, I'm speaking on behalf of Mr Hyun Jung Kim, and I'm going to start off with Mr Hyun Jung Kim. Sorry, just one second, sir. Could you identify yourself? I don't have a full note of your name. So, I'm Kyun Hyun, K-U-H-Y-U-N. I'm working under Mr Kim, and I'm here to help him on support. That's perfect. Thank you very much. Please continue. Yeah. So, the application that we have, when we had the meeting with the police, the police have told us that there was a couple reasons why we couldn't extend our time and told us a few points that we would have to fix within to surpass the application. So, what they have noted was that bus stops are within a kilometre of our store, and the bus stops are actually not within a kilometre. They are 0.4 miles away from our store, and there's a 24-hour 2-1-3 stop just across from our road. But nowadays, just from experience and from knowing how customers are, they tend to most likely either walk just because their houses are near the area, or they tend to take Ubers rather than buses. So, this just shows that the customers that enter our store to either drink or have whatever it is, they tend to be people from the area. So, they're people who live in this town, and they're people of our residency. So, they tend to most likely walk home or get a ride home from someone they know or are close to, or a family member, for instance. The police stated that we don't have any under-25 stickers, so these posters that we have to keep up, we've updated everything that they sent to us and said that these need to be done, whether if we want to extend our application or extend our opening times. They stated that we don't have the underage sales manual prevention manual, so we updated that and we have that in our manual books. We also have log books of alcohol sales, so our alcohol sales that we are selling within checking IDs, and if there are any IDs that are either fake or not official IDs, we all have them noted, we all suspend those IDs and we take them away so that they don't prevent any further problems. We also send them away from our store so that they cannot come back. We also have everything recorded, so we have our CCTV's recorded and we have log books of every situation that we've encountered so far, and we have everything logged as requested, and they're saying that any issues or if there's been any problems that we've had, we've all had it under control and we've never had any problems within the past years, so that was one of the reasons where the police, the Metroton police, were also saying that it was a problem or could become a problem in extending our time periods. When extending our opening times, our operation times, our neighbouring stores, they've had concerns about drunk people or intoxicated people leaving our stores and maybe committing crimes to their property or having some property damage, but over the past year, we've had no such issues with our customers to a point where we've had someone maybe create this damage or have property damage or commit a crime, for instance. If there was an act of crime or an act of some sort of property damage or malicious intent, it would have, it was never from or came from our store which we all have logged, we all have our CCTV's to check so we don't, so we make sure that there is no crime or we don't help commit a crime essentially, basically. Local residents also, they have, they raised concerns about noise and criminal activities, but this is unrelated to our store, so they've said that, well, they said that they've been complaining about inconveniences around this area or commercial area, but an NHS therapist informed that there is a therapy shop that operates without a licence and we think that this needs to be verified just in case because we're not sure what they're doing, we're not sure what they're up to, but they are in the same residency as us, or same neighbouring building, sorry. Along with this resident, this resident also, this resident also likes to dump their trash in the waitress car park, so in the back car park where we leave our bins for or have our bins licensed so they can be picked up by a commercial company. They tend to also throw away their trash in this commercial bin that we service for every week. One of the reasons we also like to extend our operating times is it's also a cultural style in our country, so in our country, we, as Korean people like to have like a very resident, not residential, but very communal group where we like to all drink together, maybe sing together, have, for example, play pool together or wherever it is, it's a very cultural thing and we would love to share this through the community that we live in, so in New Maldon, we would like to share this with our, throughout our people and let them know that not only are there other stores, but we are also a store that we can bring people together, so it could be from other neighbouring towns or it could be a town from far away, we would like to bring our community together, our Korean community together so that we can have a tighter cultural community so that we can have a bigger bond. This also demonstrates that other neighbouring commercial businesses haven't complained or haven't noted any problems with our business and also no one has opposed to our license since last year and we would hope that with this year as well, we would hope that no one is opposing and that none of our neighbouring shops are opposing with us as well. Any crime or complaints that we've had during the operations, we will all resolve or whether we will pursue to resolve and whether if we have to have a guard outside, for example, for ID checks or having specific people who are committing not crimes but also for any noise or damages to be kept up and to be checked up on so that we don't make any more, we don't harm any other neighbouring residents, communities or any neighbouring businesses and we plan to develop through donations and events as well through our Councillor, Robert Kim, who organises many events in New modern as well. That's it from us, I think. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Qiu. Councillors, do you have any questions for the applicants? Councillor Henry Michael, please. Thank you very much, Chair. I was just interested—this is a question for clarification. Your customer profile, I followed your initial comments with respect to how localised the customers were being able, many of them, to walk home and then in the latter part of your submission comments, you mentioned customers from other towns and from far away. So I was unsure if your customer profile is changing? Speaking on behalf of Mr Kim, yes and no. As our company grows, we do start to get new customers in from other neighbouring towns or cities. Some people do come from far, some people are local as well. While we extend our business, they do come to our store within reason. Thank you very much. I think that's Ms Qiu who is wanting to say something. Thank you. Thank you for the question, Councillor. I think what our colleague is trying to mention is that we've been quite a localised business because it hasn't been a long time since our business has started running. We are relatively new on the high street in comparison to, for example, I grew up in the area so I saw a lot of these Korean restaurants and some of these old school Korean cafes pop up and a long time ago some Korean bars as well and I've seen them come, I've seen them go, I've seen some stay and I think it's really important to realise that in recent days, especially with the rise of social media, our community which is known as one of the biggest Korean communities outside of Korea itself has started to become almost an attraction to a lot of people with the rise of Korean culture in recent days and I think it would be really important in helping our community develop a good touristic profile so although we have started as a localised business, I don't think it's a far-fetched reach for us to be able to dream of a future where we get a lot of business or we get customers visiting from perhaps places that are further to reach, for example, not in walking distance, people who have not heard of where we are yet such as the town of New Moreton so for example, perhaps people from London may crave Korean food, they may crave to seek Korean culture in an authentic way and we would really love to develop into a place that could really embrace those cultures and help share our culture with a wide diverse customer range. Thank you very much. Councillor Hadjim-Michael, any follow up to that? No, thank you very much. No, thank you and Councillor Davies for a question. Yes, I have quite a few really. At present, are you doing karaoke upstairs? Yes. Thank you. Have you seen the videos of people behaving loudly in the street? Yes. Can you confirm or deny that they came from your bar? Some people I can see, I could see there were some of our people inside but some of them I didn't see them before so I'm not sure. Some people on the video, it could not be our customers. You talked about having CCTV, do you have CCTV outside or just inside? Yes, we have many CCTVs inside as I explained to the police when they came before and there are one or two CCTVs that are directed to the window to see outside. I'm not very sure it is visible to see outside as well but we have also CCTV which direction to the outside. So actually we don't have CCTV outside but we have CCTV inside which can show outside as well. I understand, thank you. At present, what do you do about dispersing people if they're outside making a noise? We have the notice sign outside at night if they want to smoke outside and speak to each other outside then we explain to go to the other area not outside of our cafe. Where is the other area? If you go slightly down the road to the right, there is a little area in front of the waitress. It is not known but it is used as a smoking spot quite regularly in this town. On the storage of alcohol, I've seen pictures in one of the representations of beer kegs being left around under the counter, is that your usual practice? We have our storage room behind our cafe. Why were those beer kegs under the counter at the front of the cafe? The kegs delivered that day so we stacked on there and we already know about how we have to store the alcohols like displaying behind the bar to customers. For customers to not steal or to take without permission? We normally follow the rule, we already know about this information before because when we applied the last premise license last year, the police and all the council noticed about this storage area and display area before. That was in breach of your license obviously, but do you understand that having singing upstairs is also in breach of your current license, do you understand that? When we applied the previous license last year, we only operate the cafe on the ground floor. Recently, the second floor was a Korean travel agency and they left a few months ago. So we tried to extend and develop our building to use the first floor as well. Now we are applying for the first floor as well with the extension opening hour. That's what we are trying to apply this application form for this year. Thank you. Our very last question. Would you call this a restaurant or a bar? The main purpose of the business is cafe with extended bar, Korean style bar after 6 pm. That's what we are at the moment and we are trying to make more enjoyable Korean style food in a certain time. That's why we are planning. So this area is not the restaurant. We are something like a hybrid which can customer consume coffee, drink, it's kind of Korean style and some Korean style desserts like bean soup and some Korean style Korean flavor and we are trying to improve more Korean style food and drinks as well. That's why we are planning. Thank you. Thank you. I understand. Thank you very much, Councillor. Councillor Haji Michael, I think you have another question. Thank you very much, Chair. Just a question with respect to your relationship with police. Have the premises in the past received a formal warning from the police with respect to its operations? Are you talking about the warning about two months ago? It's more of an open ended question. I'm just wondering, I note that warning correspondence but I'm just wondering what has been your experience with police and what lessons have you taken from engagement with police with respect to your operations. Can we pass it on to our other colleague if that's all right? Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question again. Apart from our recent formal warning with our police, I'd like to believe that our current relationship with the police is very good. They give us points to work about, for example, points that we did not realise that we needed to work on such as having notices for alcohol and things like that. They very helpfully informed us and we have taken all of their information on board and we are very quick and efficient to put all of our practices into place in accordance to what the police have guided us on. As you heard my colleagues speak about, we have put all our posters up, we have moved all our kegs and alcohol in visible areas from our deliveries straight into the stock room and as far as I'm aware, I don't think we have had any bad interactions with the police so far and I really hope that that's the case moving onwards because, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Excuse me. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone. I just have one question for the applicant. Now we're hearing from the police and the Environmental Protection Officer in a moment and after they've spoken, you will have the chance to sum up again at the end so you'll be able to listen to what they say and then respond to that towards the end of the meeting but just before we get to that point, I'd like to ask the applicant what or how confident are you about the level of soundproofing at the premises at the moment, particularly as you're hoping to make it until half past one in the morning, how would you rate your soundproofing? Is there anything that could be done to improve it at the moment? And I don't mind which of the three people present answers that. We're quite confident in the construction of our soundproofing so when we took over the first floor a couple of months ago, we did take soundproofing measures and redo the rooms with soundproof foam, I think it was insulation from inside. We are quite confident that there is no heavy audible sounds out coming from the rooms from outside or inside. On the first floor, if you are near the rooms, yes, there is sound leakage but from outside's perspective, you cannot hear anything from inside, upstairs or downstairs. Thank you very much. I think Councillors, we've asked our questions, haven't we? So thank you very much. Oh, Alice, in fact, you've raised your hand. Sorry, Chair, could I just ask the person that joined, Vanessa, to confirm who they are and why they've joined? They're currently on mute, so I'm not sure why they're in attendance. Is it possible, Alice, just to – oh, there's Vanessa there – hello, Vanessa, can you hear? The Democratic Service Officer of the Council is asking you to identify yourself, please, and why you have joined the meeting. Yes, sorry about that, I've had technical difficulties, so I wasn't able to join from the beginning. I'm a paralegal at the Met Police DLS, I'm just here for training purposes, so I'm just here to observe. Oh, I see. Well, you're very welcome, Vanessa, thank you very much for clarifying that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Right, I think we have concluded the current questions for the applicant and we'll move on now to the section which says Responsible Authorities. And as referred to in the report, the Metropolitan Police and the Environmental Protection Officer both made representations about the application. These are set out on pages A32 to A36 of the Agenda Reports Pack and in the late material. Representatives from the Metropolitan Police and the Council's Environmental Protection Officer are both in attendance at this meeting just now. Our first call on the Licensing Officer for the Met Police, Hannah McCully and Millicent Wilde, the Police's legal counsel. You have up to five minutes, please, and Alice will advise you when you have one minute left and when your time is up. Thank you very much. Over to the police. Thank you, councillors, I will speak on behalf of the Metropolitan Police in this hearing. At the outset, I will specify that the police does not oppose the applicant's application to extend the licenceable area, which I believe is the two karaoke rooms, but does oppose the application to extend the licenceable hours for activities at 6.01pm limited. The police have sent to the council representations of police staff Hannah McCully and the statement of PCSO UCAN. Have these been accessible to councillors? Thank you. The police oppose the variation sought in relation to the licenceable areas on the basis that the variation does not comply with the licensing objectives as outlined by the Licensing Act 2003 and the statutory guidance. In particular, the police believe that the extension to the premises' operating hours will contribute to an increase in public nuisance and climate disorder in the local areas, and the police have concerns about compliance in relation to public safety. On 18 April 2024, PCSO UCAN visited New Maldon High Street to see the location of the premises and consult relevant stakeholders. PCSO UCAN consulted the New Maldon Methodist church staff and local residents to assess the impact of the sought variation, who had already been informed by the council. During the consultations, the church staff raised concerns about property damage, noise, loitering, littering and urination were the premises to extend the licensing hours. The local residents also expressed concerns about limited transport options in the local area and nuisance, and I will address the transport options in just a moment. The local policing team, the Safer Neighbourhood Area team, raised concerns about the extension to the hours and the likely cause of an increase in anti-social behaviour in New Maldon Village ward. At present, those consulted described the premises' operations as 'just manageable', but overall stated that they would not be happy if the premises extended their opening times to 1.30. The police have expressed a concern about the lack of transport options available, and I acknowledge the applicant's position that individuals may walk or get a ride home either in an Uber or through a family member or friend, however 601pm limited is positioned by a pedestrian crossing with chevrons which makes it very difficult for vehicles to stop outside of the premises. The police are also concerned that intoxicated individuals walking down the street at hours past midnight will be noisy and has been exhibited by the videos sent to the councillors, and this disruption will contribute to an increase in anti-social behaviour in the area. The last train service from New Maldon station is at 46 minutes past midnight. When customers cannot leave easily through public transport or other means, there is a serious concern that customers will be waiting, loitering and causing disruption on a near deserted and quiet section of this high street. There have also been brand new flats that have been built directly opposite the premises which will be affected by a change in the premises' operating hours. Separately, the police also have concerns about the premises' current compliance with their conditions in respect of public safety and the impact of extending the hours on that licensing objective going forward. I note and acknowledge the applicant's attempts to comply with the current license conditions following the review on 23 April, including age stickers and attempts to monitor those who are underage. However, as I'm sure the councillors will have seen in the representations, on 23 April 2024, the Metropolitan Police Kingston Licensing Officers issued a written warning after inspecting the premises and having major concerns about compliance with the current conditions. Whilst those current conditions are not up for debate or discussion in this hearing, there's clearly a read across that if these conditions are not being complied with, an extension to the hours could lead to a further disruption in public safety and nuisance. In particular, there were concerns about training and a lack of record keeping which clearly will be exacerbated by the licensing hours to be increased. I also draw the councillors' attention to a lack of understanding as to the current licensing conditions around restaurants. The license is, as per paragraph 16, 17 and 18 of their license and annex 2, operating only as a café and restaurant. In this hearing today, the Café 601 Limited have stated that they consider themselves to be a hybrid café bar, which clearly is not in compliance with the license conditions as they currently stand. For the reasons therefore set out in the representations and given today, the Commissioner invites the councillors to reject the variations sought in respect of the licensing hours as it fails to adequately meet the licensing objectives. Thank you very much indeed. Councillors, do you have any questions for the police? That was very clear, thank you. Thank you. No questions from myself, thank you very much. And I don't, I don't have any either, so thank you very much. Thank you very much. Sorry, I was getting a bit of feedback. I was getting a bit of feedback. Oh, still am. Anyway, thank you very much. Now we move on to this section where we hear from Richard O'Dell, who's the Environmental Protection Officer for the council. And you have, sorry, I'm getting feedback again, but possibly that's not bothering anyone else, but Richard O'Dell has five minutes, up to five minutes to speak and Alice will advise when he has one minute left, so over to Richard. Thank you, Chair. This variation application seeks to significantly extend their licensing hours of live music and supply of alcohol. This is quite clear that they wish for the business to become a late night drinking venue. The hours requested significantly exceed the guideline hours in the council statement of licensing policy. There are only a few late night venues in the area, and these are outside the central part of the High Street and rather detached from nearby residential amenity. 601pm, however, is located in the heart of the High Street, with the residents in close proximity, including the sharing of a party wall. After about 11pm, and certainly by midnight, there are a few premises open on the High Street, and apart from movements of occasional vehicles, trains at the northern end and buses the area is genuinely quiet. While we have not received any direct complaints about noise, I am conscious of some of the representations made by neighbors sharing a party wall with a venue, relating to sound breakout and noise from customers outside. With any licensed venue which shares a party wall with residential properties, extreme care must be taken to ensure that the volume of any music and patron noise is sufficiently controlled to prevent disturbance coming across the party wall. This is especially the case when premises operate past 11pm into the more sensitive night time hours. Except for new developments, buildings have not been designed to control these noises, and without upgrading sound insulation, there can be serious conflict. With regards to these representations, I am unclear whether these relate to noise from the ground floor and/or first floor, but any extension of hours varying the licence to include the first floor especially into this night time period, and use of karaoke rooms at these hours is likely to bring about an increase in noise and potential public nuisance. While the applicant has advised that the karaoke booths have been soundproofed, the true test of the acoustic performance of the soundproofing can only be made where there is technical information, acoustic information, on the maximum plenty of volume of music in the booth, its frequency characteristics and technical performance of the sound insulation afforded by the booth and the performance of the party wall. This has not been provided, and with representations being made, I have concerns that the live music in the form of karaoke is audible across the party wall. If it is currently being tolerated by residents insofar as no complaints have been made, this may not remain the same should the music be extended from 10pm to 1.30am. My other concern is dispersal and the management of the smoke has again submitted representation and reference to customer noise external to the premises. Should this application be granted, customers will be outside smoking or coming and going until 1.30am, and this would be below residential windows, likely to include bedrooms, would be a difficult problem to manage, and a potential source of additional late-night noise disturbance. While I am sympathetic to any owner wishing to develop their business, I feel that with the current information available to me, this request for a significant increase in licenceable hours is likely to conflict with public nuisance objective. There may be some scope to extend licensing activities to the first floor, but before considering this further, I would need technical acoustic information to demonstrate that the activities being undertaken can be sufficiently controlled. However, currently with the application before me, I recommend that it is refused in full due to the potential for conflict with the Council's public nuisance licensing objective. Thank you very much. Councillors, do you have any questions? Councillor Davis, please. I must apologise, I'm getting feedback in my own ear, but I can hear what you're saying. It's just a quick one. Now I'm getting feedback too. Sorry Richard, I've just muted you until you're ready to speak so that we can hear, thank you. And Councillor Bolton as well. No, that's fine. Just for clarification, Mr O'Dell, I think the applicant said that there was no leakage of sound from the ground floor, but that there was currently leakage of sound through the party wall. I'm just wondering if you actually registered that. Thank you, Councillor. I didn't register any agreement that there was sound leakage through the party wall. I missed that. But if that is the case, then obviously that is a concern if they are wishing to extend their hours of creating more sound leakage. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, and hopefully I won't be giving you some feedback. Cross fingers. Mr O'Dell, if I could just ask, with a refusal in full, what sort of realistic time period would there be to establish the necessary data and evidence, with respect to the first floor area, do you envisage if the application was refused in full today? It would be normal for such applications like this for the applicant to engage with an acoustic consultant who could evaluate the current design of the party wall to predict its current soundproofing capabilities and then add into that the technical requirements of the booth and set maximum noise limits by some sort of limiting device within the booth. So you have a system in place to protect noise migration across the party wall. That process isn't straightforward, it involves a gauging of a competent acoustic consultant and therefore I would imagine that would take even if they were very on the ball and got their act together straight away, you're looking at probably two months. Thank you very much. If I can just continue, if that's on the basis therefore that there's no work to take place, if works are required, which I would think that we likely certainly will need some sort of limiting device, then that will require expense and sourcing of the materials and the equipment needed. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I have no questions for Mr O'Dell, so thank you very much indeed. We now move on to the section which is called Other Persons and there were seven valid representations from other persons and these objections are set out on pages A37 to A47 of the Agenda Reports Pack but none of these other people have registered to speak at this meeting today but of course the subcommittee will take all the written representations into account when we come to make our decision, so we move on to the applicant's closing statement. So the applicants have the chance to really sum up again their application and they may like to take into account what they've just heard from the police and the Environmental Protection Officer. There's no particular time limit on this but of course we've heard a lot of your presentation anyway, but please do address the committee if you'd like to with your closing comments. Thank you. Closing statement. Thanks. Hi. Thank you very much. So I'll be closing up for today. I'd like to thank you all for your time and I will get started. So I'd like to start by saying that we do have preventative measures for sound control. As we have just heard we have locks on all of our karaoke machines. We have a set volume that we've set it to and we've locked it away with a keypad and lock on both rooms so that none of our customers can come in and metal and make the sound larger than our maximum set volume that we've already set out as well as it being soundproofed. So talking about transportation, we've mentioned that it was 1246 which is the last train out from New Moreton and like we've said our current customer base is very local, although we would like mentioned before in the future like to have more diverse customer range. Currently we are a very local cafe so most like my colleague mentioned most of our customer bases is based on within walking distance or within very short distances whether they can get the local two one street bus which is only 0.4 miles away from our store or they will get an Uber or a ride from a trusted friend or family. On the basis of public nuisance and talking with the police, I believe we have taken for preventative measures in compliance with police statements that we've taken although we were not ready right from the start having talked to the police and having received their reports, we were very quick on managing our staff, making sure that they were aligned again, making sure that we do have records up to date and we have created them for like crime prevention, checking IDs, refusing of alcohol things like that and as mentioned we have had no complaints of noise prevent noise pollution in the past year that we have been operating and we have also been compliant with all of our alcohol storage and the way we sell it. We've stored all of our alcohol behind our counters and all of our stock is now in a safe stock room behind the customer usage space. And I think we'd like to put a really big emphasis on the fact that within the past year of operating we have had very minimal to no issues with damage to property within our neighbouring community or neighbouring like noise pollution. For example, there was a mention of the church on the opposite side of our road being worried about crime to their property, however we have not had any instances of our customers having damaged their property nor any of our neighbouring acts and we like to mention that we're at the heart of New Moreton, we've been mentioned that we're at the heart of New Moreton High Street and by that we'd like to mention that we're not in the heart of the residential area of New Moreton High Street, New Moreton High Street is a commercial street and we'd like to mention that we are in the centre of a commercial street, not a residential area and lastly I think we'd just like to sum up that we are just a local business trying to spread our culture through our local community, I'm sure a lot of people know that New Moreton is a very big Korean community and we have had a lack of safe places for Koreans to drink and enjoy their culture so I think it would be really beneficial for Koreans whether they're coming from Korea and visiting here, missing home or having not experienced locals in the area who have not experienced Korean culture yet, I think it would be really beneficial for us to be able to share our culture in a very safe way through all of our preventative measures so yeah, thank you very much. Thank you very much, thanks a lot. So the subcommittee will now withdraw to make its decision in another meeting room online and as I said before the decision will be confirmed to all parties by email later today I think and the full decision notice with reasons will then be sent to all parties within five working days so thank you very much indeed to everybody for attending this morning, sorry for one or two slight technical hitches but I think we got there in the end so thank you very much and members of the subcommittee, indeed you reconvene in the decision-making room fairly swiftly I should think, thank you very much, good morning everyone, thank you, thank you, thanks, bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]