Transcript

And you will see a number of other people in the Council Chamber today. These are the officers working with us today. Would you like to introduce yourselves please? Morning, Samantha Bond, Legal Advisor to the Subcommittee. Good morning, I'm Jane Gough, I'm licensing here to read the report this morning. Joanne Cooper, Democratic Services. And could I just ask you just to confirm your names for the record please and if you could use the microphone because it's a big room and my ear is not what it was and it's been recorded so it all helps. Thank you, Chair. Patrick Robson from John Galton Partners on behalf of the applicant. We've got Elton Sula who's the business owner and Majeed Khanda as the manager. Thank you. We have no reasons to exclude the press or public. Indeed the meeting is being webcast as we speak for the public. Anybody have any declarations of interest? If not, I'm afraid we now have the minutes of previous meetings. It's only the meetings between 19th June 23 and 27th February 24 but before you fall through the floor I'm proposing we approve those en bloc if people are happy with that. Excellent, so they're all formally approved. Which moves us on to your individual case and we have a fairly straightforward procedure for such meetings and you will notice that at point 4 of that process it says that the legal advisor will outline the process to be followed. So Sam, could you outline the process please? Thank you, Chair. So the procedure's right at the back of the pack. Hopefully all our pages are the same but it's 154 on mine. So the licensing officer who's Jane this morning will introduce the report. If there are any questions concerning the report it can be raised then so if there's anything inaccurate or anything that's missing we can get that amended for the record. No outstanding representations from any responsible authorities. Conditions have already been agreed with South Yorkshire Police and the interested party who submitted a written representation has already notified us in advance of the hearing that he can't attend. But we have got the written representations from him in the report that's hopefully been seen by everybody beforehand. So what we'll do, we'll just head straight over to the applicant for the variation to detail the application, provide clarification on it and to respond to the representations made in the report. There'll be an opportunity for questions from members and officers and once that's done you'll be given the opportunity to sum up the application. We'll then take the options as detailed in the report from the licensing officer and we'll just ask you to pop outside while members go into private session to make a decision which we'll be able to feed back to you a little bit later this morning if you're able to hang around for that. The decision of the licensing committee will be given in accordance with the requirements of the Licensing Act 2003 and regulations made thereunder. At any time during the hearing members can ask for legal advice which we can do in open session as we are now or private session where we'll just ask you to nip next door and then we'll invite you back in and report back what was discussed and what the outcome of that was. And as the Chair said the hearing is held in public this morning and is being live webcast so if we could just use the microphones it just helps the cameras to focus and as Chair said with the acoustics of the room as well. And that should be everything. Thank you Chair. Thank you Sam. So could we have the report then please Jay? Of course, good morning everybody. Thank you for coming. So this morning's hearing is to determine the variation application for bar 141 on 141 West Street. The applicants are MT bars limited and was received by the licensing service on the 14th of March. There were difficulties with advertisement so then the application became valid as of the 5th of April. The variation is to extend current licenceable activities and opening hours to 4 o'clock all week. The current copy of the premises licence is at Appendix B if you'd like to see that. Throughout the consultation period the applicant has already agreed conditions with South Yorkshire Police. A list of these are still in Appendix C for you to see there. So the reason for referral today is we've had an outstanding objection from a local resident. As Sam has already pointed out he has confirmed he can't attend today as he's away on holiday but maintains his objection to the application. The details of his objection are within the pack at Appendix D. Everybody has been invited to the committee hearing as previously stated. I'm going to scoot down to the appeals section to save you loads of reading. Section 7 the Licensing Act 2003 Section 181 and Schedule 5 makes provision for appeals to be made by the applicant and those making representations against decisions of the licensing authority to the Magistrates Court. So the recommendations this morning Chair are that members carefully consider the representations made and take such steps as the Subcommittee consider appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives. Thank you. Thank you Jane. Have members got any questions on the report at all? No. Does the applicant have any questions on the report? In the absence of the interested parties he's over to you to state your case to us and address any concerns that have been raised. Good morning Chair, good morning Councillors. Thank you. As I said I'm joined today by Mr Sula who is the sole Director of the Licence Holder Company and is also the Designated Premises Supervisor and by Mr Majid Khan who is the Manager of the Premises. Now Mr Sula whose business it is has a background in security up to 2012. But in 2012 he became the Manager of the Bar in question at One for One Bar and he took over as his own business in 2018. So he's been there for a number of years. He's a very experienced operator with these specific premises. Also in 2023 he became the landlord of that particular building and that building comprises of the bar itself but above there's three private rented flats as well. I'd say that's quite an important point to note because he has separate landlord obligations to those tenants that live above. For Mr Khan he also had a background in security as well up until about 2007. Then he's been a manager of many premises in Sheffield since then, late night bars and clubs. So again he's very experienced of running these sorts of venues in the city over the years. And about six years ago he took over being the manager of the bar in question as well. So I'd say he's very experienced. And as you may have picked up from the paperwork of these three flats above he is one of the tenants and he lives there full time with his 18 year old daughter. But he also has his six year old and his two year old who will stay with him on weekends as well. So they will be living above the bar on these weekends as well and as he would say he wouldn't put his own children that young in a position where they cannot sleep due to a noisy premises below. The premises itself if you're not overly familiar with it is quite a modest sized venue located on the corner of West Street and Eldon Street as well. So there's a 234 maximum capacity sited on the licence. It only has one point of access and egress for the public and I don't know if you had the little extra bundle I served at the end of last week. It may be the smallest bundle I've ever served in my life but it just had some, I have some spare copies should you wish but it just had some pictures of the front of the premises if you wanted that circulated up. It's basically, it's a Google Street View image basically of kind of the front of the premises which you might be familiar with and that is that point on the corner is where the customers come in and out. And so that, the building entirely shields that entrance from anywhere behind it where West 1 and the objective is located. Currently the business operates Fridays and Saturdays and sometimes Thursdays as well. It will open other weekdays on occasion where they have maybe private events booked or one off occasions. That's typically near to Christmas they might do those but they are, they can do that during the week. But it's mainly the Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays where they'll trade more regularly. Operationally they would look to have a DJ on from about 8pm until sort of near close of business and that music will always go through their noise limiter that they have in place. CCTVs you would expect, door staff will be deployed so on a Friday and Saturday when they're busiest they'd always have six door staff deployed. That would be four on the door, two inside the venue as well. And that as a ratio is one door staff per 39 customers which as you'll appreciate is a very good ratio to what many premises will actually trade. And that's if the premises are at full capacity, it's one to 39 so that's quite an extraordinary ratio that they put forward for that. As I think you've seen in the paper as well, they put in themselves an ID scanner, they put in themselves the metal ones as part of their search policies and that's something they put in place themselves. It was never a request of the police or any sort of requirement for them to do so. So these are responsible for robust measures that they have put in place. The noise limiter itself, there have been several over the years but the current one's been in place for the last seven years or so. Importantly it's tamper proof, they cannot change the settings, you'd have to have an expert to come in to sort of change those settings. Those settings were set with the HO all those years ago and they'd never been changed, that level that your environmental health officer was happy with all those years ago. And it is a compression noise limiter. If you're familiar with it, it's a bit beyond my expertise but it's not a cut off style noise limiter, it's a compression one so that's a bit more sort of technology up to date. It's the one sort of acoustic consultants would always recommend where it depresses the sound as it gets louder rather than just switches it off if it gets too loud. That's the one the acoustic consultants always say is better than the other type so it's more modern tech. Sound proofing throughout the premises, to the walls, to the ceilings, round the back, round the front and say under the ceilings as well. That was put in the premises in 2015 because the then landlord wanted to convert the upstairs into these three flats. So as part of that process he had to put sound proofing in place to be compliant with sort of you know under planning permissions and these sorts of things. So that has all been put in place as well presumably to the satisfaction of Sheffield City Council. And so in 2023 there was a triple glazed deep bifolding sort of doors and windows so the frontage of the premises on West Street has these sort of windows they can open but they all triple glazed a couple of years ago as well. Other measures that are undertaken is Mr. Carr and the manager will undertake noise readings outside so we'll have a noise reading device so once the DJ starts at that 8pm every hour or so he'll go outside and make sure the noise readings are not too loud and he'll make recordings of those noise readings as well just to ensure in their opinion it's not too loud. And in the six years they've operated the bar they're not aware of any direct complaints they've had to them from local residents. Now we know the objective has stated about coming to complain I think the only sort of comment we can put to that is Mr. Sula and Mr. Carr aren't aware of that. Whether he's come to speak to the door staff that might be the case but it's certainly not made its way through to management but I'll mention a bit about that later on as well because I think we'd like to address if that has occurred we'd like to address if that doesn't happen in the future. Now the purpose of the application specifically before you is to carry on their same operation but later on into the night time economy so they want that extra hour really from a 3am close to a 4am close and with an extension for licence bar activities as well. I think they would say their premises provide a safe and enjoyable atmosphere for their current customers and there is a demand from customers to remain a little later and spend extra time in the venue. It's not an attempt to try and get extra footfall or get people in after three o'clock their usual trading times to take customers away from other premises in the area that trade later. Again typically it would be the weekend they would trade they have asked for the extension throughout the week but again they would be unlikely to use that regularly it would just be for maybe private parties and that sort of thing. But mainly again the Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays they would want extra hours to have up their sleeve. They did speak to the residents that live above prior to submitting the application they raised no issues with what was proposed and notably of course you've got no objections from anyone who lives in that immediate vicinity against this particular application. Now in terms of conditions on the licence if you've looked through the licence there were a number of robust ones already on there to deal with noise such as undertaking noise checks, having the noise limiter and acoustic lobbies in place. The premises are in full compliance with those particular conditions. So it was felt when the application was submitted that there was enough steps already within the licence not to have to nominate further conditions to be placed on the licence and of course it went through its consultation period and you have no representations today from any responsible authority. And that's one of the most salient points I'll be able to make to you today. And again as I always say in these instances the absence of objections from any responsible authority should be taken as a positive inference for the application itself. And we're not aware of course any residential group, association group has put an objection either. The objector has done it off his own back as an individual and again we'll all be aware from experience there are quite vocal residents, associations and groups in the local area and again none of those are before you today either. The police did have one comment to the application and they requested one condition, a 3M last entry for new customers and that was agreed to straight away. There was no haggling or compromises, they were happy to accept that. And I think that sort of supports the point I made that they didn't want to take further custom after 3M from other businesses in the area, they didn't need that migration of new customers. The application is purely for current customers already in the venue to enjoy their facilities for a little while longer as well. And of course your police as well are your key advisors in crime disorder, guidance paragraph 2.1 and 9.12. So we'd ask you to place a substantial amount of weight on the lack of police objection. And absolutely I'd ask you to place a great deal of weight on any lack of representation from your environmental health team. They're your experts and key advisors in noise nuisance and that prevention of public nuisance licensing objectives. So of course we'd ask you to place a great deal of weight on their absence before you today. The guidance talks about this, paragraph 9.15, your legal advisor to note. And again the inference is they have no issues if there is no objection from them. And not only are they not present today, they had no comment to the application whatsoever. They didn't suggest any extra conditions or any amendments. So as put in, they were happy for that application to go through and be granted on its current terms. And of course that's the same for every responsible authority in the area. Now we do have one objection and we're here today because of that. And you'll be aware from very experienced Councillors, I know from sat in front of me. Your legal framework for your decision making is an evidence based one. There is no cumulative impact area for Sheffield City Centre or Sheffield at all. So the onus is therefore always on the objector to produce the evidence that the application should be rejected or amended. And I would suggest no such evidence is before you. And speculation as to what might happen if it's granted or fears about what might happen are not evidence in themselves. It's also only the public nuisance licensing objective that's being engaged. The objector is quite clear in his objection with the heading that is the one that is being engaged for you to consider today. And unfortunately we don't know exactly where the objector lives within West One. All we have is information that he lives within the West One complex. We're not quite sure where. Suggesting the context of some of it, he might be slightly higher up and not a ground floor. But we're not sure. And the point is it's difficult therefore to know where he's saying any issues might come from. In using the Google Earth facility to measure distances from the front door of the premises through to Revolution Bar, which is at the front of West One, is 130 metres. So even if he was living back directly at the front of West One, it's at least 130 metres from that entrance to where he might live. And it can be somewhere into the West One complex up to 170 or further in terms of metres that objector can be placed away. And you'll see the document I did put in, which you'll know from the front as well, from looking on Google Street viewers. The premises has a frontage down West Street, but you can only see West One poking out the side there. It also has a rear area, which is just off the Eldon Road as well, but the rear area isn't used. Smoking customers always directed toward West Street, so the rear here doesn't really particularly have line of sight. You can see West One, but there are trees in the way, you've got all these buildings out of the way as well. There is no customer entrance to their rear entrance at all. Customers do not come out of theirs. There's no reason for a door or window to be open, and they're not open around that side of the building, which is also soundproofed. So if there is ever sound escape, it would be outside the front door when customers come and go, or earlier in the day if they do have their windows onto West Street open. The director doesn't make a statement that he thinks this variation is likely to cause public nuisance. Again, I'd say likely is a matter of opinion, not backed up by evidence on this particular occasion. His concerns are music escape causing noise nuisance, and noise from customers dispersing, and noise from customers congregating. I think we'd absolutely refute that second concern about customer noise causing issues as far down as West One. Again, we've got this six door staff, so on a dispersal point, we've got six door staff dispersing a maximum of 234 customers. I'm not sure we're even trading at full capacity at that particular time. As I say, a very high ratio of door staff arranging that dispersal, and managing customers who aren't allowed to congregate around the rear anyway. So there's no evidence before you of any disturbance being caused by customers of the bar, certainly not as far down as West One. There'll be a little bit of minor disturbance at immediate dispersal, but say that is managed by the bar and managed by door staff. The claim is there's music from the bar keeping the objector awake. He says he's complained to the bar twice on that, generally have no record of that particular complaint. If dates were provided, then perhaps a better investigation could be made to speak to door staff. Mr Sula says his cameras are kind of top of the range and have several months worth of recording. So if there's something recent, he could again claim the recordings and find out what that is. But we have no further details to when these complaints have purportedly been made to the premises. Certainly hasn't been put forward to the manager or to the owner and the DPS. So again, we have no evidence there's particular disturbance from music going as far as West One. You've heard evidence about the location of the premises, the building shields, the front entrance particularly. West One is barely visible when looking down West Street. There's a noise limit in place set in line with your environmental health requirements. And the noise would have to travel over 100 metres away minimum to reach this particular flat. And there's plenty of residential properties nearer than that as well. And of course Majeed has young children living above on a weekend who aren't being disturbed by this particular premises. It would also be worth me mentioning, West Street is a particularly vibrant area and we'll all be aware of that. It has very late night trading premises. There's a few of the objective references that he says he has line of sight from. From his flat, Helmshire Hotel, that is licensed to 3am already. Olivia's is licensed to 3am. He talks about issues in his objection. As far as we're aware from Olivia's, and also we may have some knowledge of being a licensing firm is, a lot of that was noise from the rear of Olivia's because they have like a rear entrance. So that door will be coming open and shutting while people are using the rear area. We don't have that one for one. The rear area's not in use by customers for any reason. There's no door customers will be using to go into and out of that area where noise might break out and travel down the rear of the property towards West 1. We've got Wick at both ends. It was closed but it's now open again and has been open for a few weeks. That trade's licensed till 3am. Again the forum is licensed at 3am as well down Division Street. There are plenty of late night bars in the area. Not that much further down West Street is a little group of premises with even later trading yet than the one for one currently has. We've got West Street Live 4am, Tigerworks 4.30am, Five Pit 5am, Molyneux Loans 4am. These are all premises that have later trading hours than we currently have. And as I do in these matters, I always go through every license on West Street that has later or similar hours. And I didn't bother putting the evidence before you but there's a big list of a lever arch file of every license from your licensing register that has equal to or later hours. And that will include your late night off licenses that operate 24/7, your late night kebab shops that go to 4 or 5am in the morning. They're very close to West 1 as well. It's a busy, vibrant area. I always say as well, and I won't go through line by line to the objectors' actual objection, but he says within it he hasn't provided evidence because he's on holiday. He talks about collecting evidence for a number of months but you'll hear the application was validated in April. There has been, I would say, plenty of time for that evidence to have been provided to be considered by this committee. You don't have to wait for a hearing date to be set. You can provide that with your representation or afterwards before there is a hearing date. He states, and I quote, I can't now submit any evidence because it's stored at home. That may be the case. He may have this evidence but he didn't say, I can't put in my further evidence. He says, Any evidence. So I would suggest there is an omission there that his objection has been put in but any evidence he did want to support it has not been put in front of yourselves for today's consideration, for you to look with a critical eye through it and see what it is. Neither do we have evidence as well to consider or investigate our end. He also states that noise is, quote, most likely to be from their bar. Again, there's nothing definitive there. That's an assertion without supporting evidence that is before you. What you have heard is evidence of all the responsible measures management and the owner of the bar have put in place over many years, the technology they put in place, the amount of door staff they have put in place, and they generally feel that they don't think the noise issues that have been purported here are coming from them. They'll be open-minded. They can consider it. The Environmental Health Officer came in with noise readings from the flat and said, Oh, look, we've narrowed it down to you. It's a problem. That can be properly investigated. But that has not occurred at all. And they will be. And speaking of them, they're more than willing to engage with the objector. There's a generic email address that I think we're happy to provide to your licensing team after this that can be passed on to the objector as well. And if he has concerns, he can put an email through that he had an issue on a particular date. And, again, they can look into an investigator and lies with him and speak to him about it. Again, we don't know about this allegation, if he's being rebuffed at the door. But, again, we'll alert door staff that we don't think it's them because the door staff do act quite professionally and they've had them for a while. But, again, they'll put door staff on notice. And if anyone comes to you and has an issue, take them forward to Majeed who will be the duty manager of the night and speak to him about what the problem is. That is not a particular issue. So it is felt between the track record of the business and the current robust conditions, they don't think further amendments to this application are required. It's a good application that's been put in. Nothing in legal terms is necessary, appropriate or proportionate in terms of any further changes. But in discussing with them, they were happy for another condition to be put forward for consideration. So we don't think it's warranted, but if you wanted to put one about noise complaints to be recorded, again, I've just got a pot of dem writing if you want me to circulate it for you. But it will be any noise complaints by residents, the premises will be recorded in an instant book and retained for at least 12 months. So if they are getting a sort of a private, direct complaint through, they will keep a record of it and that can always be considered going forward if necessary. So we don't think that's necessary from the lack of responsible authority objection, but they're happy to put some of that forward. That's my submission. I'll have a short closing as well, you'll appreciate, but if you've got any further questions, happy to address them. Thank you. I will open it up to questions. Joe, do you want to start it off? Thank you. Yes. Well, saying that that presentation is very thorough, I think you answered most of my questions already, some of them more than once. But yes, the issue of the altitude at which the noise is being experienced at West One just makes me wonder. You say the building is compliant in terms of its soundproofing, but is that tested at a high angle from the building in the direction that sound might be travelling kind of upwards? Soundproof before he became the landlord, so presumably it's the satisfaction of, I would guess, the planning team at that particular time. I'm not sure if that included. I think the difficulty is as well, because when the doors open, it's going away from the objective property. So I'm not sure how the noise would escape backwards towards West One, other than through the sort of ceiling or rear, which are soundproofed. But I think the answer is I'm not sure it's been tested from the West One direction. But if it's not escaping above. No, OK, I understand that. Yes, you've got flats above then. Beadings around the property on a regular basis and it will come out of that 90 decibel range, which is particularly loud. It's a question perhaps for our environmental health people. Do they do 360 in all directions? OK. All right. Thank you for that. No, that's all my questions. Karen? Yes, thank you. And yes, thank you for your thorough report. I just want to ask, I think you've touched on it, but what training do the staff get if a complaint comes through? What is the current process if a member of the public or somebody makes a complaint? Well, it tends to come through from security and indirectly to us, but like I said, we've never had one. So we've never had to deal with one. But there is an incident that's mounted on the front door that, like I said, we've not received anything. But can you just tell me what you would do, what's a member of the door staff told to do if somebody ever did? The member of the door staff would then approach me and then obviously we'll take it from there by email or Facebook or whatever. But we've not received any complaints whatsoever. Yeah, when we discussed that, I think a member of the door staff should come and find the duty manager. More often than not, they'll be with you on a weekend. So if it's something that needs directly to be addressed at that point in time, let's say we're not aware of any direct member of the public ever, ever doing so. Now, as I said, a reminder to the door team, that should be what is happening. And if you provide an email as well, if need be. Yeah, from my point of view, if something I'm just thinking about is, you know, if you're in bed and not being able to sleep, you're not wanting to send an email, you're wanting that noise to stop there and then. So I was just thinking of somebody getting up and coming down and complaining face to face. That would be the quickest way, you're not going to wait until the next day you want it to stop so you can sleep. A reminder to the door staff team what we discussed that they need to be very proactive. Sorry, I'm going to continue on the complaints theme. You kindly offered to share an email address with the objector today. I just wonder if people wanted to complain, is it clear how to do that? You say you haven't had any complaints, is it on the website or the Facebook page that if you're not happy, please email this or contact this number. Yes, I think there's a number on the Facebook page, if need be. I don't think there's one on the website specifically. Not on the website. I think we can provide a number to yourselves and the licensing team as well if there's ever a sort of an issue like that. It's what we often do in this situation is provide a sort of number through to your licensing team just to have one on record, just to make sure it's up to date. I think on this occasion as well, aside from that, I think when you have a specific complainant such as the objector as well, when we're not familiar with any others, I think part of the reaching out process, that's again what we always say, is build up that relationship. And I think that would be provision of a number, I'd like to think, to the duty manager's number so there is a direct telephone line as well. It's difficult, we're always giving it in the public to everyone sometimes, but I think when you know someone's had issues, I think part of that process and bridge building is to provide a number directly to them. I think that's something we will be discussing. I think that would be helpful. Again, it's just, if people aren't happy, it's just knowing what to do, obviously, during the daytime, the club will probably shut, you can't come round and contact anyone, but if they can access those details on the Facebook page, that shouldn't be an issue. It sounds like there's a lot of measures being put in place to prevent noise nuisance. With all those measures, is there still potential for noise breakout, are there any sort of weak points or weak spots where disturbance could be caused? Well, not being a noise expert, I'm always sort of hesitant, but I think the clear to noise weak spots are always the points, you know, windows and doors seem to be the case, and experiences, I think it's listed, whenever you have noise complaints from residents, it's always noise coming out of doors or windows, it seems to be a lot of the time. With the door, again, it's facing away from the objector, and there is a lobby in place, so it is like with soundproofing in it, so that should hopefully mitigate any sort of concerns, if noise does escape, it goes in the direction away from this one. Again, the windows is another weaker spot, but they will be closed, you know, they're certainly, by the time the DJ starts, they're closed, and they're triple glazed, so again, that should mitigate noise as maximum as possible. And again, that is pointing away from West Street and not down to West one, and so I think those two potential weak spots have been addressed with mitigation measures and shouldn't really impact residents that are behind the property. And again, if the EHO come to us and say we've had noise readings and concerns, it might be a different matter, but as far as we're aware, we've made it quite tight in terms of sort of sound attenuation. And again, it's not upstairs, it will take noise readings every hour, make sure it's not too late, it's run through a noise limiter, the DJ has to go through the noise limiter, there's no other way, and that said at a maximum level, that cannot be changed. So that should be said at a level where it's not causing noise disturbance to anyone around when the property is trading as it is, so it should be the case it's not possible for that to happen. And sometimes noise can act in ways we're not aware of sometimes, but in the absence of any EHO adverse comments, then we're fairly satisfied they've done everything they can that any reasonable responsible operator would do. Thank you, and I don't know, talking of noise nuisance, I've no idea what's happening outside this building. Can I just point something out, talking about a number, that somebody should have a number to call, I mean, all the lessons we've shown, are open, we've got the email address on the Facebook page, and all the complaints should be coming from that, I mean a telephone call in the middle of that. I said a phone call in the middle of the night, it's not some sort of factual evidence that somebody's called in and gone right, we've made a formal noise complaint. Anybody that supports the door, usually what happens, we've not really had a complaint so far whatsoever, I mean the applicant seems to suggest that he's made a complaint to the door staff or whoever it was in the building. It's not come to us, we've been dealing with that as soon as it comes to us anyway, via the necessary channels, not via a phone call, because we've stopped providing telephone numbers and we've been getting calls in the middle of the night, we can't deal with that adaptive with time. But if a formal complaint is made in the day, then by all means you ought to address that as soon as you can, with environmental help and noise complaints. Thank you. Just finally from me, are the other two properties, are the other two flights directly above the nightclub let at the moment, and if so, has there been any issues from tenants within those properties? I think they're directly above aren't they, is that correct? Yeah, and no complaints, no issues over the years from any tenants, they had a couple of tenants in that were in there for years, no problems, there's some newer tenants they're in now, again no issues from them either. Majeed's in one flat, but there are two other flats certainly, nothing from his children either, no complaints from them. Thank you. Sam, is there anything you'd like to ask? Just a couple, thank you. I think the objectors said obviously with other premises in the area that they've contacted licensing about issues and those have since been resolved, so it was just to confirm whether you've received anything for bar 141. Not that I'm aware of, but I can have a look whilst we're talking. I know it's a planning condition that's referenced, but in terms of the window not being left propped open, I don't know where about the window is, I can't see it from the front image of the premises, I don't know if you're able to shed any light on that and if it is left propped open or if it can be, I don't know. I think we're not quite sure, I don't think it means the ones down West Street maybe, I'm not quite sure, I'd have to look at the planning commission and the application which isn't my expertise just to see which one they're related to, but I know if entertainment's on in the premises, windows are closed I think is what we can definitely say. You'll be aware arguably, windows don't need to be closed until 11pm under music deregulation, but they are closed before then, it's not the case to just leave them open until 11pm, there's a DJ on the premises, the triple glazed, windows are closed and all other, the only thing that might open and close up is the entrance door for access and egress and that's it. Thank you, and I think as well the door, did you say there's an acoustic lobby as well or it's sort of soundproofed? I think the premises have changed over the years, I think putting the acoustic lobby back in was a requirement of the licence a number of years ago, so that works as well done, so it is a lobby and a soundproof lobby is effectively what the condition requires, but that is a condition of the licence. And that's not sort of left propped open, I imagine door staff manage if that will be left open? Yeah, door staff should be, that's part of their remit, they should be ensuring that that shouldn't really occur. And so your duty manager, are you there sort of Friday, Saturday, Sunday then? I am, yes. And DPS, how often are you there or are you just sort of overseeing the day-to-day? I usually go every hour or so on weekends, in and out. I suppose if you're only upstairs it's not too difficult. I'm the one upstairs. Oh okay, sorry, I'm getting confused today. No, that's everything for me, thank you. If there are no further questions any, it's over to you to sum up the application. Thank you Chair, right, I'll keep it brief, try not to repeat too much. So the licence capsule was meant to be a fairly light touch and permissive regime, the applicant should get what they want and this is a very good reason to the contrary. Determination needs to be evidence-based, guidance paragraph 9.43 proportionate, guidance paragraph 9.44 is very clear. You can consider or should consider other conditions placed on the licence to mitigate potential negative impact on most of the licensing objectives and the track record of the business. And I'd say there are both robust conditions currently on the licence and the track record of the business is excellent. Nothing from your police, nothing from the environmental health, I'd ask you to place great weight on that particular fact. The weight case, I know again you'll be very experienced members of the committee so I won't go into what weight means, your legal advisor will know. But obviously the absence of responsible authority objections is part and parcel of that. And again, it's not the end of the matter, if the object was unhappy and wants to take matters further and then wants to produce this evidence, there's the review process. It can speak to the responsible authorities, they can put in a review application and then we back the state before you to justify what's been going on in the meantime. So that process is always there. And if you weren't minded to grant, you would not need to depart from the guidance, you would not need to depart from your own licensing policy. There's nothing within those that would negatively impact on this application at all. And very much, your key advisor to public nuisance licensing objective is not here before you today and I ask you to place a very great deal of weight on that. So I invite you to grant the application as put forward. We have that one extra condition, should you wish to pass it to Ms Bond on my way out. If you want to mind you to place it on the license, there will be no issues from the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. Could we have the options then please Jane? You can. So the options open to the committee this morning are to vary the premises license in the terms requested, to vary the premises license with conditions or to reject the whole or part of the application. Thank you. Could I ask you to now leave the room while we take legal advice and come to a decision. And as soon as we've made that decision we'll invite you back in and tell you what it is. Thank you for your time and representations this morning. The decision of the licensing subcommittee is to grant as applied for. We are thankful to you for offering this condition but we're not minded to require it. A complaints process is a good thing to have and retaining information on complaints is a good practice but we don't see that making a condition of your license would achieve anything in terms of the reason we've met today. We also very much appreciate your offer to share contact details with the interested party and with licensing shouldn't. In a hope that you could actually forge a better relationship and address some of these concerns. But we wish you the best of luck and we hope that you still continue to receive no complaints about noise breakout from the premises. And that's the decision of the subcommittee this morning. Thank you. Sorry, just for the benefit of the recording, just there is the right of appeal against that decision by the interested party. So we'll receive a notice following the hearing that will be emailed out confirming everything that was discussed today, a summary and how members came to the decision and the reasons for the decision. So should the objector wish to appeal, that's within 21 days to the Magistrates Court. But as the Chair said, hopefully you can build some sort of relationship and if there are any issues they can be dealt with there. Thank you for your time this morning, it's much appreciated.

• Thanks. [BLANK_AUDIO]