Transcript

Thank you, Shamina. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to welcome you all here today. I'm just going to read out a protocol for the remote hearings before we start. Please only speak when invited to by the chair. If you wish to speak, please raise your hand and direct all communication via the chair. Please ensure that your mics are muted when you're not speaking. When speaking, please be succinct and do not exceed the allocated timeframes. If referring to any written submissions, please refer to the specific page number at the agenda pack. Any new evidence can only be submitted at the discretion of the chair and the agreement of all parties. If you're having any technical difficulties, please use the chat function to alert the meeting or dial in using the details in the invitation. Please do not use the chat function for posting formal questions to the subcommittee. Any persistent disruptive behaviour will result in removal from the meeting. Once the application has been considered, the remaining parties will be asked to log out of the hearing. So, please do so promptly and the councillors will then have the opportunity to deliberate and make a decision. Each party will be notified of the decision as soon as possible. However, the licensing service may be able to inform you of the outcome of the hearing tomorrow with full details of the decision to follow. I would now like to hand over to members and invite them to elect a chair. Natalie Firminger I would like to nominate councillor Smith. Thank you very much, councillor Moema. We've just got two councillors on this one tonight. Councillor Kennedy says centre's apologies, but we'll go through that in a little bit when we go through the agenda. Nice to see you, Jack. This is the meeting here that we're doing tonight. Always like to feel that. Licensing subcommittee see Monday the 11th of November at seven o'clock. There it is. On the inside sleeve, you'll have your agenda. If you're digital, you can have you can see that as well. I've got a physical copy here. That's mine. But sometimes you'll probably have a digital copy. Just before we start the formalised meeting, we'll just go through introductions just with officers and members. So I'm Councillor Smith, chair of licensing and also Councillor Stoke-Newton ward. Councillor Moema. Yeah, I'm Councillor Moema and I'm a councillor in Hackney Downs ward. Fantastic. Amanda. Good evening. My name is Amanda North from legal services, and I'm supporting members this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Suba. Good evening, everybody. I'm Suba Srinamana, principal licensing officer, and I'll be presenting the reports. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we've heard from Mark. Thank you, Mark. Mark's our governance officer. And Sharmini is our IT officer. She'll be doing the IT stuff. So thank you, Sharmini, as well, for all you do. That'd be great. So I think in terms of the agenda, we have got election of chair, which we've done. Number two, which is apologies for absence. There are no apologies for absence today, as far as I'm aware. Agenda item three, declarations of interest in members of any declarations of interest to declare. Councillor Willard. No, I don't. Fantastic. Minutes of previous meeting. I don't believe there are any minutes of the previous meeting today. Is that right, Mark? Yep. That's correct. Great. Thank you. And then we'll just go through the hearing, the hearing procedure just very quickly for everyone as to how it works. So it works in steps. Quite straightforward. So step one is the appointment of chair. Step two, the principal licensing officer will outline the report over five minutes. Step three, the applicant will present their case in support of their application. Step four, which would be responsible authorities. But in this case, things have agreed. Environmental health have withdrawn at paragraph 8.1 in the pack. And then we have others as well. Then we do move on to the others. After that, there's no responsible authorities today, so we'll go straight to the other people. So I'd like to just do some introductions now, actually, before we start, just on who is on the call. I'll just call you one by one. So I can see Roberta. I know that you're the applicant because of the photographs in the pack. But if you'd like to just introduce yourself, that'd be great. And to lose myself? Yeah, yeah. Just a very quick one. Nothing to measure. OK, so good evening to everybody. I just explained my project. No, no, just to say who you are. You're just here as the applicant, that's all. Yeah, I'm the owner of Malawenda Cafe LTV. OK, great. Nice to see you. Thank you very much. And I've got Andrea. These are names that I can see on my screen. Is it Andrea? Yeah, hi. Good evening. I'm one of the two Andreas and I'm partner and director of Malawenda Cafe. OK, so you're here with Roberta, yeah? Fantastic. Thank you very much. How would you, I mean, Jack, I presume, are we going to be hearing mainly from you? Good evening, Chair. Yes, mainly from me and then a little bit. So Roberta is obviously from the family that founded the company, and then the two Andreas and Alex are here, and perhaps here to assist with any operational type questions. OK, OK, great. And you can just call them or whatever. Absolutely. Yeah, brilliant. And I've got one next gen hub. Yes, good evening. My name is Andrea Chiarusi and yeah, I've looked in with company accounts and I am one of the director of Malawenda Cafe here in UK and partnered with Roberta for this project. OK, that's great. Thank you very much. That's great. Thank you very much. So Mark, just to clarify, there are no others here as far as I can see. Is that right? We did have Jackie Hollis. Right. OK. Jackie Hollis, who is on the list, but she was the only person who's turned up, but she has disappeared. OK, so let's just see. We can carry on with the meeting and see if she turns up again. Nothing we can do, folks, about that. She doesn't. OK, so everyone happy to move on? Yeah, great. So so we move on to step two. So I'd like to invite Principal Licensing Officer Suba to outline the report for this one. Thank you very much, Suba. Thank you, Chair. So the item we are going to consider is for an application received by the Law Sensing Service under the Law Sensing Act 2003, Section 17. It's for the premises Malawenda Cafe Unit 6, 1 E Manchmo Terrace. The application is seeking the authorisation of supply of alcohol for consumption on and off the premises from 12 to 2200, Sunday to Thursday, from 12 to 2230 on Friday, and from 11 to 2230 on Saturday. Reprecisions remain from other persons and I have nothing else to add. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. I think we can move on, Councillor Malema. If I don't hear anything, I'm assuming so. Yep, I'm fine. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. OK, Jack, over to you. Thank you, Chair. I'm conscious that we don't have any responsible authorities or interested parties. I'll aim to speak for about four minutes, but if you want to hurry me along or ask any questions as I'm going along, please, please do so. Should we just bring in Amanda here very quickly? Amanda? Yes, Chair. I am aware that we were still quite early into the meeting and we're still awaiting attendance of the other persons. So, I think we shouldn't rush, only because if they suddenly appear after your four minutes, then you'll need to speak again. So, you know, I don't think you have to rush. OK. Is that all? I think I don't know if that's agreeable to you, Chair, but it's just I think we know it's a fair point to see if anybody else does appear. Just on this, Mark, do you have any means of contacting Jackie at all just to see if we can? Yeah, I'll drop her an email. Just to see what's happening there. Amanda, are you suggesting we stop altogether and wait for a minute? No, no, I think we can continue on. It's just that we don't have to rush because we need to wait for a good five minutes to see if anyone else arrives. But is there any way of contacting the other persons as well to see if there's anybody else that is on the way or something or, you know, we've had no confirmation from anyone else despite emails and the appointment. So I will follow up with Jackie just to find out if there's an issue or whether she plans to come back. We should continue. The subcommittee has begun. Yeah. OK, fair enough. I think by 7.15, if nobody else arrives, then you can proceed on. And if you need to conclude the meeting earlier, then that's fine. OK. OK, Jack, off you go. Thank you, Chair. We're grateful to you and Councillor Moama for reading the supporting material in advance and to your officers for including those in the papers. You'll have seen that the premises will sell coffee, pastries and bistro-style food. And then into the afternoon and evening, there will be a modest wine and aperitif offering across the small basement and ground floor. From the presentation, you'll also seen that Roberta's company stretches back five family generations all the way back to 1872. And I hope Roberta doesn't mind me saying that this is possibly the slowest ever company expansion I've heard of for sure. But this should reassure you that there is a lot at stake for Roberta and the team being five generations of family history. They are therefore determined to make the business successful and they know that they can only achieve that if they are accepted by the local community and demonstrate themselves to be a responsible neighbour. At pages 85 to 89, you'll see that the applicant team have written to the objectors on a couple of occasions. No response has been received to any of that correspondence. Nevertheless, the applicant will maintain an open door policy for local residents to provide feedback no matter the outcome of this evening's hearing. The correspondence that you will have seen confirmed amendments and concessions made by the applicant to address and clarify concerns raised in the objections. The amendments are summarised in the document at pages 81 to 83. If I may, I'll briefly take you through the key ones now. Firstly, to address concerns about the hours, the hours have been reduced to just 10pm Sunday to Thursday, 10.30pm on weekends. Secondly, off sales will only be sold in sealed containers, for example a retail sale of a bottle of Italian wine to enjoy at home. Thirdly and significantly, the applicant has offered condition 26, page 21, prohibiting external drinking, which we do appreciate was a significant concern of the local residents relating to noise. A general point on noise, Chair, we understand that the residents accommodation is a modern apartment block just metres away from a busy train line across the road, meaning we would expect high levels of acoustic attenuation in that development. Finally, on those amendments, Chair, new condition 29 and page 21 requires the implementation of a smoking policy to ensure residents aren't disturbed by this activity, although given the early hours, the nature of the use, the small capacity, and that smokers can't take drinks outside, we're confident this will be straightforward to manage and the applicant will of course listen to any ongoing feedback from residents about smokers and indeed any other aspect of the premises management to enjoy a harmonious relationship with neighbours. Briefly on policy, Chair, the location is not an area you're considering for cumulative impact assessment designation. The hours are well within and you'll know much less than your core licensing hours. In addition, as demonstrated by the complete lack of responsible authority representation, you propose conditions ensure the promotion of the licensing objectives in accordance with licensing policy two. So to conclude, Chair, we ask you to please give an opportunity for this charming family business to contribute to the London borough of Hackney as it has done so in Regio Calabria in Italy for over 150 years and you'll have the team, you'll have seen Roberta, Alex, and the two Andreas to assist you with any questions you have, but that's it from me for now, Chair, thank you. Thank you very much, Jack. Just to clarify, just one point before we go on is about the, so in some of the other representations, residents that is, they mentioned 2am, but there's no non-standard hours applied for here, is that right? That's correct, I confirm, no non-standard hours, so I'm not sure where they got that from, but it is a misunderstanding. Okay, that's great, thank you for that. And Councillor Willem, do you have any positive clarification at this stage? So this might be a silly question. There's also mention of another premises called Pathy, and I don't know if that's something which is in the space that you are applying for this license or whether that is a neighbour? It's a neighbour, Councillor. So it's a different licence? Yeah, different licence premises, yeah. So nothing to do with you? Nothing to do with us. Okay, all right, that's it. Excellent, thank you very much. Okay, so Mark, Amanda, everybody else, Jackie hasn't turned up. Nope. We have no responsible authorities, and at the moment, although we have had submissions, which Councillor Mawema and I have perused over, we read all those submissions, we're aware of them, are we all happy to continue into the discussion phase? Yes, Chair, that would be fine, thank you. Okay, great, fantastic. Okay, so we'll move into the discussion phase now. So I'd just like to invite Councillor Mawema to come in and start the discussion. Thank you. Yeah, so some of the other parties had some concerns about that you said that you're going to manage people outside if they go out to smoke and that sort of thing. Have you had a thought about numbers of people, kind of a limit on how many people at any one time would be able to go outside? Or just if you wouldn't mind talking through how you're going to manage that. Yes, thank you, Councillor Mawema. If I can refer you please to condition 17 on page 20, that was a condition agreed with your environmental health officer that the number of smokers to allow, the number of smokers allowed to use the smoking, the smoking designated area from 2200 hours shall be restricted to five people. Yeah. And then on top of that we've agreed other conditions, so there's condition 18, notices displayed outside, and then also no customers are allowed to take drinks outside, that's condition 26, meaning smokers aren't going to be loitering outside with drinks, and then condition 29, a smoking policy as well. Yeah. Okay, one other quick question for me, Gilbert. The building seems to be a new construction. Yeah. And so your premises, if you do open up this cafe, is it purpose built? I'm wondering about kind of the sound, how it carries? Yeah, so I can't, forgive me, I was, I'm not sure I was hoping we'd have some interested parties here this evening, but I thought they might be able to help with the dates of the construction. I've taken, well, it's a very modern building. I think one of the residents state that they've lived there for eight years, but my best guess is they were the first residents to move in because it doesn't look much older than that. And the planning use is residential upstairs, commercial on the lower floors. The planning authority typically require, as part of a planning submission for development like this, to have submissions on noise and acoustic attenuation to make sure that residents aren't disturbed from external noise sources. So that should have included the commercial uses on the ground floor, but I think more pertinent, the busy and active train line directly across the road, literally meters away from the residents' bedrooms. So the planning authority will have made sure that the developer had to build to a certain standard to ensure that there was no adverse noise input from those sources to affect the residents. Okay, thank you very much. Great. Yeah, just on the smokers, if I can just come in there. One of the other representations did mention a condition on page 94, a suggested condition, page 94 of my physical pack, around there was to be no smoking in the vicinity and immediately outside the premises and that any patrons smoking outside do so across the road opposite the premises. I think there is a condition on some other license along there on Mentmore Terrace that sort of talks about that. I'm just putting it out there as to how receptive you would be to thinking about that, just because even though it's five and even though it's core hours, you know, if they could just walk across the road, then maybe that could help things. I just wanted to sort of check out how you feel about that. Yeah, thank you Chair. I'm not sure, you know, obviously the exact circumstances of the other application, whether that was something they may have proposed. We've proposed condition, I think it's condition 29, requiring us to have a smoking policy and that's to allow us to risk assess it dynamically, depending on feedback. What we wouldn't necessarily want to do is a definite say that customers will go across the road. Firstly, there's sort of health and safety issues with them having to go across the road all the time, but also they're then, they're also then not being supervised as closely as they might be if they were nearer to the premises. So what we'd hope is that you'd go with our condition, which if after three months, six months of trading, it's apparent from all of the resident feedback and responsible authority feedback that smoking should be across the road, then that can be built into the smoking policy. But if that's problematic, then the smoking policy should be flexible enough to have people smoking, you know, one side of the front door or the other side of the front door or, you know, maybe less than five people, even if it's problematic. So hopefully you can trust this applicant to control it that way. Yeah. I mean, I'm just looking at the Google Maps actually, I'll just put it up on the screen here so you can see it. So this is the premises we're talking about. Yeah. So where would the smoking area be if at all? Is it just randomly sort of outside? Yeah. Could I hand you over to one of the Andreas please to answer that one? Have you thought about an area or is it just generally on the pavement just outside the premises? Andreas, could you just point out for sure whether it's where the middle, make sure we're all talking about the same unit from that. I can just about see your screen share. Yeah. Yeah, good evening. Oh, and I can see that there is a sign on one of the door and that is the unit one, the units that we apply for. And related to your questions, our idea is to have people not concentrated in front of the door of the unit, but slightly on the side of it, not disturbing the premises next to us. But also all the consideration we can effectively done once we can see the footwell also on the footpath to consider where positioning. But as Jack mentioned, due to health and safety reason, we don't see to have smoking get across the road. So slightly next to the entrance of the of the restaurants of the unit one E. Yeah, I'm just looking at the picture now and you can see three balconies essentially open out there. And obviously in the wintertime, they may not be using those, but in the summertime, they might be using those. And I'm just a little just a tiny bit concerned about those in terms of smoking like right underneath their balconies, particularly if there's children up there. So I just kind of I wanted to flag that. I mean, I don't want to labor the point too much either, because I suspect I just get the feeling that we obviously, you know, in general, numbers of smokers are sort of dwindling slightly in general. So maybe it might not be such an issue, but at least we kind of, you know, temporarily discuss the idea of something, another alternative just in case there was a problem with that. Do you want to come in or should I continue? No, you can continue. Yeah. And you can chip in when you feel like it. OK, so you mentioned live music as well, and you mentioned three times per week. I just wanted to try and find out a little bit more about that. That's on page 87 of my physical copy, Jack. So we don't have to have regulated entertainment because we're not up to 11 and all the rest of it. So just a little description of the kind of thing that we're thinking about. Yeah, and Roberta can come in if you need to expand on this, but it's very low key, as you might imagine. It might be a soul songwriter who is coming in to perform an unamplified recital of their song. It might be an acoustic guitar, possibly a piano or a very small, low key jazz performance. And that's it. But all very low keys, not going to be promoted, ticketed events or anything like that. It's just to add to the ambiance of the evening activity. OK, great. Off sales, we sort of discussed that. So that's going to be in sealed containers. That's OK. Smokers, we've touched on that. I think you mentioned in the submission kind of the idea of crowd management, you know, sorry, crowd control measures, I think, in quotations, which talks to dispersal. Again, don't want to be too heavy or it's a small venue. Very pleased to hear that they're thinking about that, because that's important. I wonder, could we have something maybe written down that we could present to the local authority, just as a document as part of the application? Yeah, sometimes I speak without instructions, which is always risky, Chair, but I'm sure the team can agree an extra condition in the usual format requiring a dispersal policy to be implemented and deposited with the licensing authority. It's just really to show that you've thought about how you're going to do this. That's all, really. Yeah. So that's good. There was another suggested condition that one of the others suggested that I just wanted to run past you as well, which was windows and doors closed from twenty hundred hours. Yeah. Again, I don't know the nature of the venue, whether you've got air conditioning, do you need ventilation, how all that works. But again, just putting that out there as well. Yeah. And we have we have talked about that, Chair. We are, I hope you've seen that the team readily agreed quite a lot of what the residents were asking for immediately. That was something that they were a bit nervous about. Chances are on the colder months, of course, they're going to be closed anyway. But occasionally during the summer, again, just to have that. Yeah, it's really hot. I get it. And it really is that. And it's not about having a noisy bar. It's just about having a continental feel. And I mean, we're obviously not going that late at all just just to contribute to the atmosphere and feel of the place. But it's that it's that only. So we prefer to avoid that if at all possible. That's great. And just my last point is about the capacity. Twenty was mentioned on the ground. Ten was mentioned in the basement. I count the seats on the plan. I don't expect them to corroborate exactly with all of that. But the final total was thirty five. Yeah. So I just wanted to work out what the final total is. Yeah. So seating is give or take a few covers. Thirty five. If there is a songwriter comes in for a recital, there may be a few people standing around the bar, which may take the capacity up. OK, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. OK, Casimo Emma, I'm pretty content with all of that. How are you? Yes, I'm happy with all of those responses, too. Great. OK, well, I mean, I think, to be honest with you, Amanda. You're on mute, Amanda. Sorry, I was just checking some points. Have you considered the extractor fan? Yeah, again, I didn't want to necessarily labour this point too much, but I did note that it was an extractor fan in the basement. I just wanted to think about where the exit pipe comes out, where it exits. It's further down the line. I mean, this is more of a planning issue. Yeah, then it is a licensing issue. But I suppose it's just an opportunity for us to put it out there that, you know, wherever that exit is to be basically pointing it as far away, you know, from residents if possible, because otherwise it may be a problem. I know it's tricky. It's a planning sort of issue this. I know we're sort of stepping into that territory, Jack, but just very quickly. Yeah. So I might ask one of the. In fact, I'm just going to, as you can imagine, Chair, on a WhatsApp back channel, I'm just going to ask Andrea to come in on that. But just to say as well, this is not a large scale kitchen operation. It's all quite low key. So the demands on that system would be very low anyway. But Andrea, please come in. Hi, yes, of course, we have considered this matter and we are evaluating two options. One is classic extraction systems with three filtering systems that goes, of course, on the outside of the unit. The other option, which looked very interesting, is a re-circuit extraction system. So it's a technology that basically take the air from the cooking hub and depure it automatically. Because we are on an early stage with the application and building stage, we are in consideration of both, but we definitely will be carefully thinking about the better option for everyone involved. Yeah, I'm very, very interested to hear about the filters and also about the kind of the sort of modern technology because I'm sure there's some stuff out there because you have to be. I know that you're aware of this already, but it is a very strong residential pocket there. Yeah. And there will be residential buildings like right next door who may basically suffer from kind of odours. And if it's all the time after a while, it kind of gets to people. So anyway, I made my point, Jacket. Yeah. I'm just pleased to hear that the applicants are thinking about that. That's great. OK, I mean, I think we could probably go on to closing remarks. Yes. Yes, that's fine with me. Great. Chair, sorry to interrupt. Are you satisfied about the outdoor limit? Because I know there's no drinking permitted outside, but I don't know if there's any. Yeah, I mean, I think that the five number of smokers is reasonable. That's fine. You know, at the moment, as I say, I am slightly worried that there's balconies above there, but that can maybe be addressed in the future if it is a problem. Anyway. And finally, dispersal policy, you're happy that you've asked everything you wanted to ask in respect of that? Yes. Yes. And I think Jack has said that they're happy to draft a small little version up of kind of like crowd control measure dispersal, you know, that kind of philosophy really around that. Yeah. So just don't close your remarks really, Jack, I suppose. OK. Chair, nothing from me. I'm just going to put Roberta on the spot because you've not heard from her whether she wants to say anything. But I've just Roberta, do you want to say something very briefly? If not, no problem at all. I mean, I'm really looking forward to come there and to be part of that community. So it's just this. I mean, you said everything you have to say. OK. Great. That's it from us then, Chair. OK, great. Well, look, the best of luck with it. I mean, it all looks really lovely to me. Thank you. You know, the offer, the wine, the pastries, the history, the heritage, you know, it's all great. Good relations with the neighbours. That's all I'll say. Yeah. That's really, really important. If you get that right, then you're going to be a success. No problem. 100 percent. Thank you very much. OK. Thank you very much, everyone. Thanks, Councillor Mayne. Cheers. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Sorry, just one second. Let me just drop Shamina a line to stop streaming because she's also doing the call in before. Perfect. She heard. Thank you, Shamina.

Transcript