Tooting Karahi and Company Limited's application for a new premises licence for Butkarahi, to allow them to sell takeaway food until 2am was granted subject to conditions about waste disposal, and the management of noise and crowds outside the restaurant. The meeting considered objections to the application from local residents Belinda Yeldon and Thomas Southwell, and from Councillor Anna-Marie Critchard, on behalf of residents.

Application

Tooting Karahi and Company Limited applied for a new premises licence to allow the Butkarahi restaurant at 26A-26B Upper Tooting Road, Tooting, to sell late night refreshment between the hours of 11pm and 2am every day. The application also requested that the restaurant be allowed to open from 8am to 2am every day. The applicant's agent, Mohamed Malik, said that the restaurant had a maximum capacity of 50 people, and would primarily be used for people to eat in, though he acknowledged that 10% of the business was expected to be takeaway sales, and that food could also be ordered from delivery companies.

Change of Use

The restaurant is located in a building that previously contained two units, a takeaway restaurant and a betting shop. Mr Malik told the meeting that planning enforcement officers had told his client that the change of use from two units into one larger restaurant would need planning permission. Wandsworth Council's Statement of Licensing Policy says that licensing decisions should be made independently from planning decisions:

Planning permission and a premises licence are separate authorisations and both have different objectives which must be decided separately.

However, Councillor Critchard, who represents residents in the area, said:

I would uh also suggest that the license doesn't come into play until the planning issues have been resolved because actually i think that and that would actually be a good thing from the applicant's perspective because i think the applicant needs to show that they consider that this is in a residential area and they would like to be a good neighbor and i'm sure that's one of those things that all applicants should consider.

Refuse

The original application attracted objections from the council's planning team, who noted that a change of use application would be needed, and also expressed concern about the management of refuse and waste from the business. The committee report noted that the applicant had entered into a waste disposal contract, and this was confirmed by Mr Malik at the meeting. Ms Yeldon asked if photographic evidence of the applicant's compliance with waste disposal regulations was available, but was told this information was not available at the meeting.

Consultation

Ms Yeldon told the meeting that she did not believe the applicant had correctly displayed a notice in the restaurant window, as required under Regulation 25 of The Licensing Act (2003). However, Julie Hopkins, the council's lead licensing officer, told the meeting that a licensing officer had visited the property on 19 December 2024 and had taken photographs which showed the notice correctly displayed. Ms Yeldon responded that she had photographic evidence of her own which showed that the notice was not displayed. She said:

I think the trick in that is the fact that there's no opportunity for them to, for a decision to be made with all of the information available which makes it quite a tricky decision.

She also noted that the applicant had only advertised the application in the South London Weekly newspaper.

Public Nuisance

Ms Yeldon said that her primary concern was the potential for the restaurant to contribute to public nuisance in the area. She said:

As a residential area at two o'clock in the morning, I think there's a big question on do people need to be able to eat at 2am in an establishment both in and out and then it's just also recognising that the council doesn't appear to fully being able to assess either through limited information or not asking for more information about public safety, protecting children from harm and public nuisance.

Councillor Critchard echoed these concerns, saying:

my suggestion is that the late night opening actually will mean there is public nuisance... i think that it's inappropriate in this area for a restaurant to be open later than 11 o'clock for anything... so my suggestion is this is not the place to have late night opening because it's a residential area we have previous experience i know that applicants always say well we don't know it was our premises but actually we know that if people are there late in that area they cause noise and i'm afraid whatever mr malik says that is unfortunate and that is not what my residents wish to do so i would urge the committee to reconsider the late night license and if you are going to grant it tied to conditions.

Mr Malik told the meeting that staff at the restaurant would be instructed to ask customers to leave the restaurant quietly, and to move away from the restaurant quickly.

Councillor Lawless said:

i just want to ask um can you elaborate a bit more on some of the local um nuisance issues that you've had um because i think it might be useful for context in the area.

Ms Yeldon responded by describing a number of incidents that had taken place on the street outside her home, including an occasion when she said she had been sworn at in the street, and another occasion on which she said the police had moved a crowd of people from the end of the road to the street outside her house, where they had continued to make noise. She said:

i think it's really hard to say if it's one business or another because we don't we don't stand outside the business waiting to see who's left which business and then decide who's decided to come onto our street surprisingly at one o'clock in the morning yeah in bed.

Councillor Brooks noted that Ms Yeldon's examples pre-dated the opening of the Butkarahi restaurant. He also drew the committee's attention to the recent adoption of a cumulative impact assessment for the area, which may be relevant to the application.

Closing Remarks

In her closing remarks, Ms Yeldon said that she was concerned that the conditions attached to planning applications were not sufficient to mitigate the nuisance caused by late-night businesses. She said:

i think we are deeply concerned that the current requirements from the planning application do not necessarily um effectively address some of those bigger concerns so around the dispersal of people the um public the noise that comes out of the establishment.

Councillor Critchard suggested that if the restaurant was to be granted a licence, it should only be allowed to open until 2am at weekends, and should be subject to tight conditions about the management of noise, crowds, and deliveries.

In his closing remarks, Mr Malik said:

we're trying our best to make sure what we do as a business as ourselves we're doing the best we can to minimize any nuisance what nuisance is caused by any other business is out of our control... anyone parking inappropriately are like ideally outside the shop and drop on the curbs those will be restricted as well they'll be told to park appropriately in a proper parking bay so staff will make sure people are not doing something against the law in essence.

He also argued that restaurants were less likely to contribute to public nuisance than takeaways, as customers tended to stay inside the premises for longer. He said:

in terms of late night application they are the premises along the street mainly takeaways that have got approval since 2 a.m. and again like I said those are takeaways so that's a different type of food trade in and out in and out so there's more nuisances more noise and there's more people people people going in and out as we are a restaurant there's obviously going to be like I said previously in the start it's more of a eating so people are going in the sitting down spending mostly on takeaways so they could be the reason for nuisance I'm not saying they are but ours as we are a restaurant so it's completely different scenario and obviously different kind of environment and setting so it's more family based and more dining experience so I think based on that that's all I have to say thank you very much.