Transcript

May I remind you, good evening, welcome to this formal meeting of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Licensing Committee which is the first meeting of the licensing committee of the municipal year. I'm Councillor Peter Golds, I represent the Island Gardens ward and I chair the licensing committee for the coming municipal year. May I suggest as a formality and for procedure, I will inform you the meeting is held in person, committee members are present at the meeting and only committee members can vote when a vote is taken, if a vote is taken. But for the purposes of anybody watching or online, I would like members to formally introduce themselves and I will start with my colleague at the end, Councillor. Good evening, Councillor Farooq from White Shipple Ward. We now move to the officers who are here. Jonathan Melnick, legal advisor to the committee. Thank you, back to Councillors. Councillor Ahmed Uqabiyyah, Bethnalton East. Good evening, Councillor Mushtaq from Bethnalton West. Thank you chair, Councillors have been asked, I step to Green Ward. Councillor Asmo Islam, Weaver's Ward. Councillor Shubho Hussain, Bromley South. Councillor Lilo Ahmed, Malin Ward. And Councillor Rebecca Sultana is here. And Councillor Rebecca Sultana, Bethnalton East. Thank you very much, colleagues. Formerly, there are no fire alarm tests, so if we do hear the fire alarm, everybody out and assemble in the due place. The meeting is filmed for the Councillor's website for public viewing. May I ask members or remind members to only speak when I call them and to press their microphone and when you finish speaking, switch the microphone off. And can I remind all members that at the moment we are in Purda because of the general election campaign, so any items that could be considered as an electioneering topic, I will rule out of order immediately. I now move for the first item on the agenda, which is apologies for absence. Ms Yesmin, do we have any apologies? Yes, Chair. We've received apologies for absence on behalf of Councillor Anamiya and Councillor Kabir Hussain. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for recording that. Item 1 is formerly the election of the Vice Chair of the Committee and it is our first duty. Do I have a nomination to act as Vice Chair? I do. I nominate Councillor Sultana Ahmed as a Vice Chair. And I only seconded. We have a proposed and seconded nomination for Councillor Sultana Ahmed. Do I have any other nominations? We have a proposed nomination for Councillor Shubose. Do I have a seconder? Councillor Sabina Aktar. Thank you very much. In which case we formally move to a vote. All those in favour of Councillor Sir Luke Ahmed? Against. Oh sorry. All those in favour of Councillor Shubose? It appears to be four. Six? Oh yes, I counted. In which case Councillor Shubose is declared Vice Chair of the meeting. Thank you. We now have declarations of interest. Do any members have any declarations of disclosable, peculiar interest on any item on the agenda this evening? Formerly there are no declarations of interest. Thank you very much. We now move to item number three. Will members agree the unrestricted minutes of the 18th January 2024 meeting which are published in the agenda? I've been through them and I find them a good account of the meeting. Anybody? All those in favour? That's agreed. We now turn to item four which is the reports for consideration. Item 4.1 is Licensing Committee Terms of Reference. This is on pages 13 to 20 of our pack. You will note that we not only do this, that we put them in our pack which are formally available for us and members of the public, but they are included on every agenda so I see no reason why we should go through them in detail. Therefore may I therefore propose that we approve this item on the agenda. All those in favour? I pointed out they are here. They are available at this meeting. They are put on the public record so they will be on the published record of both the agenda and the minutes. And they are included in our agendas for each licensing subcommittee so we do know what our work programme. Therefore I don't think there is any reason for presenting them formally or discussing them at this meeting. All those in favour of approving this item? That was unanimous. Item 4.2 is the establishment of the licensing subcommittees, terms of references and meeting dates. This is a slightly more complicated matter because we meet during the year. We note the terms of references and we agree the meetings. As you know we sit on our panels of groups of three and one item of those of course is I don't think myself or the vice chair can agree every meeting. And one of the big advantages of Tower Hamlets, we have an enormous number of applications. We work through them quickly and we make sure that our licensing subcommittees operate quickly and efficiently. So to do that we have a panel of three but of course we need additional members to chair the panels who must go through the training process for chairing. Now I have volunteers for members who would wish to chair a panel bearing in mind that myself and Councillor Shubo-Hussein are already on the list. Other volunteers? Councillor Aktar? Yep, Councillor Ahmed? That's right. Well you're on. Oh sorry, Councillor Sir Luke Ahmed? Anybody else? Would they like to go? Councillor Lilo Ahmed? Any other colleague? Councillor Sultana? That's a goodly number so we can work very well on that. What will happen when we need panels? Ms Yesmin as clerk to the committee will get in touch with you and invite you to chair the meeting, go through the agenda with you and you will know who is serving with you. And you will work both with Ms Yesmin and either Mr Melnick or Mr Wong who will be representing us legally at the meeting. So chair, just for noting purposes, this item is to establish the licensing committee, note its terms of reference and the meeting dates and appoint the licensing subcommittee chairs. So today obviously through nominations, just to confirm, I have obviously the chair and the vice chair as well as Councillor Sabina Aktar, Councillor Asma Islam, Councillor Mushtaq Ahmed, Councillor Lilo Ahmed, Councillor Rebecca Sultana and Councillor Ahmed Dukabir who are now subcommittee chairs, is that correct? Thank you. I think that's all okay, we've got the terms of references, we've got the subcommittee chairs and we'll have the members doing that. Everybody happy with that? May I say one thing in particular, we had the training earlier on this evening, if as a member you're invited to attend a subcommittee or indeed even chair it, if there is an issue about which you feel strongly and about which you do not feel that you might be able to go with an open mind on, I can think of other subjects, it might be you know somebody, it might be within your ward, it might be any number of issues. As we have the smaller subcommittees of three members, just say, just resile yourself, it then means that if any members of the public turn up and think they don't have an excuse to say that the committee is completely, not in any way impartial. Because we have the numbers we can do, you can always resile yourself because there will always be somebody else to be one of the three member panel. Councillor Acton. Thank you, can I just ask, so in the subcommittees where we do decide, is it always physically we have to attend as members or we could have as hybrid, just to get some clarification? I think this is a slightly complicated one, Jonathan Malnick on that one. As I understand it, the general expectation of the councillors of people for all of the committees, even licensing, to turn up in person, I think it makes certainly more sense as well for members of the public who are coming here, the expectation is that officers will be, and if for whatever reason you can't appear presently, then possibly best to simply recuse yourself from that meeting, as we might find out in due course in the next couple of weeks as we heard, there is going to be a high court judgement that will give some clarity to this whole process in any event. So certainly for the moment, the safer option is everyone in person, or at least those who need to be there. My view is always err on the side of what is best. It's a silly expression but it's always sometimes known in political circles as the smell test. Always be in a situation where you make a decision and there could be no controversy about it. We don't want to end up in the world of controversy, so on that. We now move to the late night levy annual report. Sorry I'm moving rather too quickly. Do we formally agree the report and the decisions we made? We agreed that on a voice vote Ms Yasmin, so everybody was with us on that. Item 4.3, pages 31 to 48, which is the late night levy annual review. May I invite Mr Lewis to present the report. Thank you chair. I'm going to defer to my colleague who is the originating officer of the report to deliver this report presented to the committee. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Tom. Thank you chair. The London Board of Council adopted the late night levy which came into effect on the 1st of January 2018 from the day any license holders, premises license and/or club premises certificate permitted to sell or supply in the case of a club premises certificate alcohol between midnight till 6am is required to pay the levy. All income raised by the levy must be funded. Most fund activities and resources which benefit the late night economy. The legislation of the government, the levy required that 70% of the revenue must be paid to the police and the council may retain 30% of the revenue. However, during the consultation for the decision to adopt the levy, the council obtained an agreement with the deputy mayor for police and crime that all of the revenue raised by the levy could be retained by the council. And the decision of how to spend the revenue would be made through the community safety partnerships. This is a noting report to outline the annual report for 23/24 of income received, expenditure and initiatives funded by the levy. The levy charge is set by the central government and is based on the rateable value of the premises. Please see the table below of the charges on page 32 on 5.1. Most premises in town homeless are rated as B, B and C. Total income received by the levy in year 6, 23/24 was £258,000. The council is entitled to deduct its administration's cost from the introduction and management of the levy. Our only costs deducted are for the late night levy officer's room. This is an officer who manages the levy, which is myself. Which includes coordinating the current initiatives and exploring other options for new initiatives to promote the levy objectives. The total cost deducted for the role in 2023 to 2024 is £55,516. This includes parking permits cost. All spends for initiatives outlined on 5.6, page 33. Total spends includes coordinator's role, £563,154. In 2022 to 2023, the total estimated budget was £588,000, which gave an estimated surplus of £318,000. This combined the total revenue from the late night levy in 2021 to 2022 plus any surplus left over. Due to the large surplus that had built up mainly as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, we took the decision to introduce additional initiatives in 2023 to 2024 to bring down the surplus. The figure above shows that this was worked with the surplus now £155,000. Now I'll go through the list of initiatives. The additional police spectrum. The additional police work a shift pattern of seven offices, one police sergeant and six police constable. Working two nights per week, Friday and Saturday, and additional Sunday nights where the Sunday precedes a bank leader on Monday. There are also additional quarterly projects, such as operations to tackle nitro oxide sellers outside the late night levy venues. Patrol will have a minimum of one officer who has received welfare and vulnerable training. Where a patrol is unable to fulfil this requirement, the reasons must be declared in the written result of the patrol provided back to the council. Police petrol continues to be tasked by the licensing authority through a multi-agency forum that includes licensing police. Environmental health, trading standards, licensing, noise and community safety and other responsibility authority, for example, London Fire Brigade. In year six, 2023 to 2024, approximately 87 task patrols of the borough were completed by the additional police. And their role is to be an uniform presence on the street to deter crime and disorders and promote a safer nighttime economy. There have been a number of positive outcomes for this additional police patrol. Assessing security checks and venues dealing with their disorders, including street urinations and drugs, including nitro oxide. Assisting venues and members of the public. Below are just a few more examples of the positive impact on the late night economy within the borough. I have listed ten examples and I will read three examples from there. Arrest of an adult male with possession of an offensive weapon, possession of cannabis and breaching the public waters. Street urination was detected and evidence obtained, assisted to issue an appearance for the offense. Special project. They observed a female being followed closely by a male. Police met with a female who indicated that she resides in Canary roof and that the police dropped her off at home for her own personal safety. Nitro oxide and unlicensed food stores. In July and August 2023, two nitro oxide operations were organized, which utilized late night level and levee serial police patrol. This was in partnerships with community safety, TOS, CCTV, PTF and licensing officers from environmental health and training standards. The objective was to disrupt nitro oxide uses linked to the late night economy within the town homeless. There was also an emphasis on the use of the public space protection orders, PSPL, for psychoactive substances. Mr. Husseini, I don't wish to sound awkward and I know members are interested. We have had this before and I don't think you need to read the entire report. It may be better if we put the report on the table and invite members to question you on matters of interest. That would particularly be helpful. I've got one particular matter of interest because I note the cost on this, but if we go to page 39 are the portable urinals. The problem of public urination is something that we suffer from across the borough. The cost of the portable urinals for a year, there are three of them, is £110,000. I note that at weekend they are used by as many as 560 people and I presume it is per urinal. Do you have evidence that it has been a big advantage to us to have these three portable urinals and stops the antisocial behaviour associated with public urination? If you'll permit me, I'll answer that if I may. What we receive from the urinal company is basically a usage. They do a rough analysis of the usage of those urinals and we get that through once a month, I believe, which basically dictates how often it is used. From the millilitres, we do a rough calculation of how many people have used it. In terms of whether or not it is removing street urination, it's a difficult one to prove because we've not got much figures on where street urination is in the borough. When we do find it with our other patrols, as Ibrahim has pointed out in his presentation, those details are passed to the Theos and fixed penalty notices are issued. But in terms of is it reducing it in that area, it's difficult for us to actually get that as a proper figure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Other members' questions? Councillor Islam. Thank you, Chair. I'm new to the committee, so please bear with me while I'm trying to catch up. When it comes to the estimated budget for 2024-25, I wanted to ask how that was generated. How is that put together? Because I have a question around some of the changes of income for licensing. I would have assumed that this would have been higher in consideration. And the additional initiatives, because of the surplus, I understand that. But I wanted to ask a question around reactive initiatives as well. So when you have certain seasons, especially in the summer, when in certain areas, especially the CIZ areas, when there's an increase in how we react to, say, litter or urination in the streets and things like that, there seems to be no budget absolutely for a reactive measure as well. Thank you for that question. If I take the reactive one first, and if I forget the other questions, if you just remind me. So the reactive one, in terms of litter and any part of the initiatives, they are all tasked by the Licensing Enforcement Forum, which, as Ibrahim has pointed out, is attended by a majority of responsible authorities and community safety as well. With the litter, because we do street cleaning and street sweeping now, as of last year, there is a facility within the SLA that we have with the waste services, where if there is intelligence that comes to the attention of the LEF, the Licensing Enforcement Forum, we can do a reactive task of that cleaning service, because it's done by usually about 48 streets, so we can add more to it, subtract them, or do a reactive service on that. It is the same for the police, it is the same for the street pastors, and to a degree, we could do the same with the toilets as well. The only difference with the toilets is, obviously, because we're placing them on the public highway, there is licenses needed to do that, and they run for between three and six months. We tend to buy six months because it's more cost effective, so to move them around without that, there is more of a cost involved, so we tend to be a bit more restrictive on moving those around. But certainly with the patrols, the medics, and those kind of initiatives, they are reactive, they are tasked by the Licensing Enforcement Forum, and they are tasked based on intelligence that comes in, basically. My other question is how are you making the estimated budget for 2024/25, because our events license is part of the late night levy, so obviously I am aware of some events that are coming up for this year. So if you've got a license that permits you to sell alcohol between midnight and six, you've got to pay the late night levy charge. That charge is collected over a year, so last year's collection of levy charge, which is, I think, 158,000, or just over 158,000, that's the budget plus whatever surplus we've got left from previous years, so the actual budget for this year is 413,000. Does that make sense? Thank you very much. Just a follow-up on that question. So with the budget, what we've had last year, the surplus, and we've spent on the new, for example, the street cleansing, have we seen the benefits? I mean, are we getting, like, are residents being happy from this expenditure? What are we getting response, or have we calculated that yet? In terms of cleaning, we've got the before and after photos that are in your pack there. We haven't received any intelligence through the licensing enforcement form last year in regards to cleaning, so we've not done that reactive work on it. We haven't received many complaints about litter from into the licensing team, so I can't really give you that information. What was your other question, sorry? Just like the response of the feedback, and since you said we didn't get that kind of information, perhaps we can ask the waste team or, I don't know, how we can link those departments to get feedback and say, okay, if this is working, or if this isn't, then perhaps we need more budget, for example, because cleansing is an important part, especially if we are getting the extra money from the levy, the late-night levy, from selling the alcohol between midnight to 6am to see if this actually is effective, cost-effective. I've just been reminded by my colleague as well, actually, that we do do an audit of the cleaning aspects of it that we pay for, and they go out and do quarterly inspections to make sure that the cleaning that the waste team has done meets a certain criteria, they believe it's a national criteria, and where that falls short, we deduct that from the charge of the waste service, the internal recharge of the waste service does. Thank you very much, Councillor Acton. Are there any other questions from members? No? No questions on this side? No? May I say, Mr Lewis and colleagues and Mr Hosseini, thank you very much for the preparation of the report, thank you for presenting it this evening, and the answers to the questions. May I now put, may I now invite members to note the report, all those in favour? That's agreed, Mr Yasmin, we now move on to item 4.4 on the agenda, which is the Prosecutions and Appeals Report, pages 49 to 56 on our agenda, and I invite Mr Melnick to introduce the report. Mr Melnick is about to move his seat, so we can now all get to page 49 with ease. Mr Melnick in your new seat, the floor is yours. Thank you, Chair. I'm going to keep this relatively brief, it's a fairly short report in any event, as you know, the committee, some years back, asked for an annual report on the prosecutions and appeals that are concluded in the preceding calendar year, so this report is covering effectively the calendar year from January 23 to December 2023. Obviously, as you know, when you license premises or carry out reviews and sites like you impose conditions on licenses, you revoke licenses, and the expectation is, of course, that those conditions that you impose are adhered to, and you want your revocation decisions, or indeed any other review decisions, upheld. When we do deal with these matters, it's not just the licensing act matters that we are dealing with, although that's the predominant focus quite often, it's going to be the massage and special treatment premises that sometimes fall foul of enforcement activity, and particularly with the trading standards prosecutions for things like underage sales, those in particular bring to the Council's attention other infringements such as illicit tobacco not complying with other age-restricted products, and where those are ascertained quite often, we will prosecute those, and they'll be mentioned in the report, you actually have a complete picture of what we're prosecuting for. I will say, again, just for completeness, because looking at it, there's not a massive amount of work, it would appear. This is a tiny fraction of the work that my team actually does, and this is only those matters that are actually concluded in any one year, so it may take some number of hearings, for example, before a case is finally concluded. In terms of the prosecutions themselves, you'll see there's only a total of four that are actually concluded in that last year for varying things. The first one is underage sales of alcohol, the standard tobacco notice, and you'll see from these, again, as you go through, there can be quite a disparity between the sentences that are imposed. On the second one, DB Limited, the company was fined £9,000 for an underage sale, and a fairly substantial cost to order that was in fact pleas entered on the day of trial, which explains why those fines are quite high, and of course it's also based on the company's means. The third one, in particular with relation to the costs, which are nearly £7,000, and £1,000 in offences, that was a matter that took, it was set down for trial at the beginning of January, and it was adjourned because the defendant wasn't ready, it was set down for trial again in March 2023, and again the defendant sought yet another adjournment, and it finally got called on in September, and every single time we were trial ready, it costs us to prepare for those, hence those costs being quite high. And then finally, an unlicensed late night refreshment prosecution, there was a guilty plea by one defendant, and he was fined, and all to pay costs accordingly, the other chap was acquitted after a trial, which of course sometimes happens. And then in terms of the appeals, again we have six appeals concluded, one of those was the Oval Space appeal, which was following an expedited review, that was eventually withdrawn, the second one hooked neighbours, which I'm sure will be familiar to many of the members here, the appeal was dismissed following various underage sales and what have you, in a fairly hefty costs order. Again, moving down, I'm not going to read them all out, you see quite a few where they've been withdrawn, and they wanted to pay our costs, and on one occasion the human health one at page 53, where they withdrew quite early on, so there was very little point in seeking costs, and then finally Jack the chipper, which did actually go to a hearing, but it was quite clear that the judge wanted the parties to try to reach settlement, which they duly did, but obviously what that shows is a number of matters concluded, and with reasonable outcomes for the council as well, and again as you've heard during the training, some of these appeals in particular can take many, many months before they're actually called on, so they can be hanging around for quite some time, I think most of these probably started well before 2023. That's essentially the basis of the report, I'd be happy to take any questions that members may have. Thank you very much Mr. Melnick, may I exercise my right to pose the first question, if we go to 52, which are the appeals, would you agree that the council's licensing committees are robust, inasmuch that this relatively small number of appeals and the general success of them has been to the advantage of the council, and I'm particularly interested in the Jack the chipper one, because although it went to court, in effect we got a negotiated settlement which was in the direction which the licensing panel wished to move, and was in my view to the advantage of both the licensing panel, the residents of the borough, and to the applicant. With that particular one, what was eventually settled on, it was something that had the applicant for example posited that it would be acceptable to the committee, I have no doubt that the committee would have certainly considered it, I can't say whether of course you would have granted it, but it was one of those things that the negotiations came very, very late in the day, in terms of the decisions that this committee makes generally, yes I would say that they are robust, you and your colleagues obviously have the legal, you hear what the parties say, you get the benefit of the legal advice from myself and Mr Wong, and as a general proposition you make very good decisions, and that's again highlighted I'd say certainly by the fact that particularly overall space, the expedited reviews are normally quite heavily fought, the fact that they conceded that one quite quickly, I mean it was a very, very lengthy decision as it needed to be, but it was absolutely the only one that you could have made. I congratulate the members who sat on overall space, it was a very difficult hearing, and I think we need to thank members, I think members of the residents of the borough would be pleased with the decision, and the maturity members showed, and the advice we were given by our officers, and how ultimately the appeal was withdrawn, and we reached the solution to the benefit of everybody. I don't wish to hold the meeting, do colleagues have members? Yes, Councillor Kabir, then I move to Councillor. I'd like to thank Jonathan Malik because I've been licensing member last year, and whatever your achievement is, credit goes to you as well, you work really hard with us, and thanks to you and the Council. It seems like last year, in terms of appeals, we didn't lost too much money, in terms of the Council, I mean the Council didn't lose too much money, but in previous years we did have a lot of appeals that we lost at the Council. So you're saying that if we actually seek that guidance and that legal advice beforehand, we can actually save a lot of money, but should that be a decision factor? Sometimes it is a bit like, you know, sometimes the panel, we see it as a panel, and we're like, you know, this is this, maybe it doesn't seem this way, but then we do kind of think, but if this goes to court or appeals, we might lose it at the Council, so we always have to, there's a bit of a conflict always, having that guideline. Mr Melnick? As I think, as Mr Rankin pointed out in the training, one of the factors that you don't have, regardless of where you make your decisions, is what happens if there is an appeal, because that's what you're concerned with, is what happens now. If you have to make your decisions, they have to be robed out. Quite often there isn't one right decision, there are a number of responses that this committee can make in relation to what it hears, and that's the committee's decision. It doesn't have to be the right decision, it has to be a right decision, and what will sometimes happen is that the decision on the appeal is not upheld. What's more important is that the reasons for the decision at the time withstand scrutiny. If and when they do, and they ought to, and that's what I always, and Mr Wong always strives to do, is make sure that your decisions reflect a robust decision-making process, is that when the court goes there, they see why members made the decision that they did. They may not necessarily agree with it, and they may overturn it because, again, it might be several months after your decision, things will have changed, there may be so many different adaptations made to the premises that the court decides, well, the decision was right at the time, and it was an entirely correct decision to be made, but it no longer is for any number of reasons, and in situations like that, it's very, very rare that the court will order the council to pay costs. One of the most recent examples, which was only a few months ago, related to premises in Queen's Yard, where there'd been a variation application and a revocation, you revoked and obviously refused a variation on appeal, although the revocation decision was overturned, a variation was refused, the court ordered no order for cost, but it was, again, quite clear that it understood the council's concerns and the decision it made, and it rose out of the tragic murder that happened in Queen's Yard in February of last year. I think, ultimately, you have to make your decisions for the good of the community. There is always a cost risk, but as long as your decision-making is robust, and if it's a decision that is clearly going to get challenged, and we ask you to consider settlement, then that's what we do. We don't always have to, but you can't make them purely with a view to what's the cost risk, and I think, actually, it's nice to see that not only are there no cost orders, but there are actually quite a few cost orders where we get the costs back. So, again, it shows that it's, I'd say, everything's going in the right direction.

• Thank you, Mr. Mennon. Councillor Sultana.
• First of all, I'd like to do many things for Tom Lewis and Melanie for the wonderful presentation. I just want to ask you if it is falling into this, the prosecution or the penalty charge, which is, in my constituent, one of the shop owners, he's very upset because the officer went to his shop, and he have things outside. He's at continental shops, and then he got some things outside, within his boundary. But the thing is, when the council officer, they went to his shop, and then they gave him a penalty, and he was saying that it is really unfair because of his next door. They have the same things within the boundary, they got things outside, but they didn't get any final penalty notice.
• Rebecca, I'm not sure we should be discussing any individual case like this at open meeting.
• If I may, that relates, it sounds like, to street trading, which wouldn't be within the remit of this committee in any event, but I wouldn't be in a position to comment on anything particular, I'm afraid, in relation to that, and certainly not here.
• I think if a resident goes to you with an issue like that, then I think they must, frankly it's a legal matter, but it would be better for them to seek legal advice and take it up properly in that fashion, because neither this committee can sit here thinking, well, an individual has said this and we don't know, and somebody else has said that. It becomes very, very much hearsay, not a subject for a meeting like this.
• May I jump in on this, Ms Uddana? This is licensing, I know what's happened, exactly the resident, I know who you're talking about, but it's not this one, the different department, they're dealing with this, the penalty, and officers goes on this, not in licensing one. Thank you.
• Does anybody else wish to speak or ask Mr Melnick a question? Mr Melnick, we now formally, may we note this report, please, and all its observation? That's all agreed, so, Ms Yasmin, that's been agreed unanimously. May I, before I formally close the meeting, may I thank members, may I thank officers, may I thank colleagues, because there is much that shows here, that the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Licensing Committee is a good committee, it works extremely well, we have a very, very good team of councillors, assisted by very good officers, and I would give one little hint, because I was sitting at a licensing meeting, and to my amazement, I noted a very prominent councillor from another London borough sitting in the public, and I just wondered what note he was sitting in there for, so I spoke to him afterwards, and he said to me he'd heard about how Tower Hamlets does its licensing, and he wished to observe the process here, and take it back to his own local authority, and operate on the panels version that we do, so this is a big plus for Tower Hamlets, so let us go forth this year, and have a really good year this year, let's have as few appeals as possible, and let's do the best for our borough. With that, I formally close the meeting, and we have our next meeting. Thank you for everybody. Thank you for everybody. [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]