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Agenda and draft minutes
March 12, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
of the public hearing, I would now like to introduce Councillor McLeod, the Chair of the Licensing Committee.
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this licensing committee. This meeting is being webcast and some officers may be accessing virtually. Please bear with us if we have any technical difficulties. My name is Councillor McLeod. I'm the Chair of the Licensing Committee. I now invite the members of the committee, when I call your names out in alphabetical order, please switch on your microphones and confirm your attendance. And once you've confirmed, don't forget to switch off afterwards. Okay. So in order, Councillor Burchall. Good evening. Thank you. Councillor Davis. No. I'm going to fast forward to the names I can see here. Councillor Justin. Yeah. Good evening. Councillor Pridham. Good evening. Councillor Rigby. Here. Councillor Fraser. Hello. And Councillor Jeffries. Good evening. We have received apologies -- oh, I'm so sorry, there you are, how can I miss you, Rex? Councillor Osborne, are you here? Turns out I am actually, yes. That's really good to know. Okay. So apologies. We've received apologies from a number of Councillors including Humphreys Lawless, French, Jaffray and Mayorkas and members -- I'll go through this stuff about switching your microphones on and off. We know all this stuff by now, to be honest. Okay. So agenda item 1, minutes from the last licensing committee which for those of you who remember it was on the 25th of October last year, you don't need to have been present to agree the minutes. Are there any issues or any points that anyone wants to raise or can we accept these as -- agreed. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. So are there any declarations of interest, are there any declarations of either pecuniary of a registrable or non-registrable interest, please declare these quotes in the item in the paper. There are none. Wonderful. Okay. So agenda item 3, this is the five yearly review of the council statement and licensing policy. This is something that we have to do every five years and Caroline Sharkey, I can see you there. Caroline Sharkey will just present -- you'll have read it but just to give you a very quick heads up before you come up with any questions. Thank you, chair. I'll walk you through the report, I'll give you a brief summary, I'm mindful that members have read all the paperwork in front of them. So as you say, chair, this is the five yearly review of the council statement of licensing policy and we are required to adopt it every five years. The current policy chair is going to need to be reviewed by May this year. At its meeting on the 25th of October, the licensing committee approved the amendments to the current statement of licensing policy for the purpose of public consultation and also approved the arrangement for the consultation. The consultation took place between 30th of October last year and 12th of February this year. This involved consulting with all the responsible authorities under the Licensing Act, the solicitors who regularly represent licensee in the borough, trade associations, ward councillors, residents associations and all the other key stakeholders that are listed in the committee report chair under paragraph 6.2. In addition, copies of the consultation document were published on the council's website and we also published the consultation documents on the social media or social media platform of the council, including the local newspapers. We received 48 responses to the consultation. The process of the comments received is attached at appendix B of the report, which is produced on pages 71 to 116 of the agenda. An indication of the comments made to the draft policy and where reasons have been accepted or rejected has been replied to in the appendix document. From the comments received chair, these were mainly relating to the cumulative impact of license premises in some areas of the borough and also the recommended framework of hours to be reduced in residential areas. There were issues in relation to street drinking and planning permission once premises come before the committee. Each of these concerns have been addressed in the responses that were provided at appendix B of the document and we have also responded in detail under paragraph 7.2 of the report, which is on pages 6 to 7 of the agenda. At its meeting on the 25th of October last year, the licensing committee may recall a discussion took place on the need to review data to analyse whether there are indeed cumulative impact areas within the borough and the licensing authority chair is prepared to collect this information and we can refer it to the committee for consideration and approval to go out for public consultation sometime this year. Under paragraph 8 of the committee report chair, which is on pages 8 to 10 of the agenda, we have provided information to the committee that the council as the licensing authority can depart from its own policy or the guidance which is issued under section 182 of the licensing act if they choose to do so, but they have to give good reasons of their actions. This is the committee report before you chair, I'm happy to take any questions, but the committee tonight is asked to approve the draft policy which is at appendix A of the report and we are also asking the committee to approve for the licensing for me to make any minor amendments as a result of this meeting tonight in consultation with you chair and also the committee is asked to approve the policy for it to be referred to for council. Thank you. Thank you very much Ms Sharkey. So I was committee now, any issues, any questions, points? Councillor Burchill? Yes, can I just have some clarification on the temporary events notice? I think when we had our last meeting, we were discussing whether or not the number that a venue was allowed to have was going to be increased and it doesn't actually say on the paper how many temporary events notices say a cricket club can have. Thank you. Ms Sharkey? Yeah, thank you Councillor, the temporary event notices are written in statutory regulations. Before Covid, premises could have up to 20, but the guidelines which are in the statutory legislation for 10s is the maximum capacity a premises can have is 15 per calendar year, but they can't reach over 21 days, so whilst it's 15, but if they have a consecutive 10 that reaches 21 days, then they'll reach a maximum capacity and there are also capacities per the person who's applying for it. For example, a personal licence order is entitled to 10 temporary notices and a non-personal licence order is entitled to less than that, but all that information, when we get the 10s, that is checked by the officers and if somebody's reaching their maximum capacity, we also advise them that they are nearing their maximum capacity that they can give and the calendar year starts from 1st of January to 31st of December. I don't know whether that, we are provided some information in the policy in terms of temporary event notices, I'm just trying to check what page number that is, there is a brief description on what the 10s and that is under paragraph, yeah page 43, paragraph 25 of the licensing policy. We also have that information on the website, so whilst it's in the policy, we've also got a page dedicated on temporary event notice and guidance that we offer out to members of the public and applicants. I don't know whether that answers your question, council. Thank you very much, it does. Can I just ask one other question, residents nearby can't object to a temporary events notice, can they? So if there's a problem with a venue that is having lots of temporary events, do they have to just report it to the nuisance people? Yes, that is correct, Councillor and I think we discussed this at the last meeting last year, basically the temporary event notices are just a light touch, less bureaucratic process than a premises license, that's why the government introduced them because they are just an occasional event, but we do know that some premises do use them on a regular basis and the only people that can object to a temporary event notice, environmental health section, noise and nuisance team and the police authority. What we tend to do with residents, because of the pure nature of the temporary event notices, when they are being disturbed or an event results to disorder, we do encourage residents to ensure that they lodge their complaints to the noise and nuisance team, to the police, also ask as we work closely together with both responsible authorities and what tends to happen is when they are aware of the issues of the previous ten and I'm talking from experience is they do object to any future tens that come in, the responsible authority will put in an objection to say no, this notice would undermine any of the licensing objectives because the previous event caused a lot of impact to the residents, so that work does carry on, so we would encourage residents to make sure if they are affected by any temporary event notice to make sure they either put in a complaint to us or the noise and nuisance team and the complaint procedure of how to log the complaints is on our website for noise nuisance and the police and also in addition with the noise nuisance team in environmental health, they have an out of hours service, all this information is on the website, the beauty of that, if the residents are being affected at the time of the noise, the officers can actually go out and witness it themselves out of hours and then they will be able to make that decision that when any future tens are submitted, they can object to them. Thank you very much and I do know that the noise nuisance team are effective, I've only used them once and it wasn't on licensing but I know that they are effective, so thank you very much. Thank you for that, just for clarity I think it's worth saying, so it's not that you can't object to a temporary event in advance but obviously if a record of doing them badly is set up then we will reject them in the future, so there is still some chance for residents to come back. Councillor Justin. Personal licenses were introduced in 2005 and everyone who was an existing licensee was automatically given one and subsequently people can apply to get one but in the intervening 19 years I've not been aware of anyone who's ever been reissued with a personal license either by way of loss or by way of them actually disintegrating because they are a very thin photocard that was issued in my case August 2005. Since that date I've not seen a single identity card since then so is there a cost implication that we in Wandsworth, because I've seen them from other boroughs, we have not reissued them and it's Europe supposed to keep the original one which in my case is 19 years old. The problem is for employers if someone applies for a job and I want them to be a personal license holder without having that card they can't prove it to me and I can't get proof back and there's no way of going on a sort of a website to find out if they have got a personal license. Okay, if I may, yeah thank you Councillor. So yeah you are correct personal licenses were granted way back on the 24th of November 2005 when the licensing act was introduced but they are indefinite and they are granted in two parts. One is a card part of the license and also a paper document of the license. What the regulations say, I'm quite happy for Guy Bishop to chip in, is that they are only required to change the personal license if you change your name, you change your address, if there's a change in your personal circumstances then you can request for a replacement of the personal license and it's £10.50 for a replacement but they are granted indefinitely. Whilst they are granted indefinitely they can be reviewed at any time if a personal license order was convicted of a relevant offence under the licensing act we do get that because the police do, personal license orders do get jobs in a licensed premises to become a designated premises supervisor so their licenses get then scrutinized by the police and then they come before the licensing committee to make a decision whether that personal license order can continue. But yes you are right if you wanted an updated license you can contact the licensing team and we can reproduce your license with a new photo ID that we can incorporate within your license and whether that helps. Thank you. I hope you're not suggesting that the Councillor's picture will have changed in 20 years because I'm sure it hasn't. Did I see Mr Bishop's hand up? That was a legacy hand. Okay. Any, Councillor Fraser. Thank you. It's just looking at some of the consultation responses on this and I think it's kind of testament to some of the licensing committees we've probably all, or subcommittees I should say, that we've all sat on. It's kind of that tension that comes up and there's obviously in the feedback a lot of stuff about saying a lot of the anti-social behaviour is to do with noise, to do with street drinking and kind of trying to portion that to either kind of bars or kind of shops which we know is very difficult to do but is obviously kind of quite sensitive to, for many residents who live in those areas, I guess it's kind of whether there's a view as to how as a committee we could, or as Councillors we can then look at that and maybe say I don't know if there's a policy or kind of wording that can come out that we can use to reflect in those comments because obviously it's very difficult to say oh that definitely comes from that bar, the noise, oh that definitely comes because that shop sells tins that people buy after a certain hour. It's kind of that feedback that comes back to us every time we have a consultation and every committee we have but I don't know whether there's a way that we can kind of move past that feedback that we get. Thank you. Through you Chair, basically this is why we're saying that there might be areas within the bar that are saturated that have got that cumulative impact as a result of the feedback but we need to go out and gather that evidence for you members and present it to you and if there's evidence that some areas in the bar are, I do know from the reports, the comments that received that Patney, High Street or 2T, if those areas are saturated with licensed premises then those residents will be affected with a cumulative impact effect as a result of the licensed premises but we need to go out and gather that intelligence and then present it to the committee and it's then for the committee to decide whether yes there is sufficient evidence to say those areas have got an impact and then we'll have to go out for consultation then adopt what is called as a cumulative impact policy. What that means Councillor is that when applications are before you as a result of objections or representations from responsible authority then you can take that into consideration to say right that area is actually a cumulative impact and then you can make your decisions whether to grant the application or to reduce the hours or to just make a decision based on the fact that that area is saturated. You could actually do that and the cumulative impact policy can be formed part of the policy document whilst this can be granted we can still go out and carry that work of the CIA which can be formed part of the document and help you to make those informed decisions. I don't know whether that answers that. Yeah that's very useful thank you. Any more questions or queries? No okay thank you then in that case does this need to be agreed or? Yeah okay so with all that in mind I ask the committee whether they agree with the recommendations in whatever I've lost my page to be honest sorry in two and three and yeah wonderful okay so moving on to agenda item four which is a review of the fees I'm just seeing who's presenting this the resort by sorry a report by the executive director of finance and executive director of environment community services are you speaking to this as well? Yes I am chair thank you this is a yearly review chair of the fees the paper that you have for the licensing committee fees are gambling fees and we have to review them every year to come into force on the first of April you will see from the report chair that the gambling fees are set at the maximum level majority of them we are just proposing to slightly increase those ones that have been and not been set for quite a while and these are some of the transfers and restatement of license applications under the gambling act 2005 and basically you know we're just asking members to consider the proposed fees and to approve them if possible I'm happy to answer any questions or any points of clarification at this at this time chair thank you thank you very much Councillor Rigby thanks these fees on page 113 are these fees that the gambling centres bingo etc need to pay annually or is this just when they set up their business thanks thank you Councillor so the fees that are set up in appendix I'm just pulling up the report just bear with me the the gambling fees are the fees that we charge for applications for new applications annual fees and also for restatement or a transfer of a of a gambling license some of the fees are statutory and some of the fees are are set at maximum levels the the gaming payments those fees are set at a statutory by government we can change them the ones that are in appendix one of the report for the for the gambling committee report those are the ones that we can set but we have got a maximum capacity that we can set them up and what we're saying is the those fees most of them have set up maximum capacity that the council can charge it's only the transfers and restatement that we we've we've increased to clarify like on a betting premises at the bottom which of which of these fees could we put up and which are we allowed to put up based on national government thank you and through you chair so on in appendix one of the report they it sets out the bingo licenses so most of the ones that we proposed the the bingo licenses adult gaming center family entertainment center betting shops they are actually most of them are actually at the maximum we can charge and the only ones that the council we can the committee can set discretionary are the ones that we've increased slightly like for example under the bingo license there's a transfer application the maximum statutory fee we can set is 1200 currently we charge 500 and we are proposing 950 the reinstatement is the maximum we can charge is 1200 last year we were charging 1000 and we are proposing this year to charge the maximum fee so those fees the council can set but most of them are up to the maximum level we can charge now the appendix 2 document counselor and through you chair these are statutory fees we can't set them they are set by government and whether that answers the question thank you it's it's quite revealing how how little money the government allows to take away from businesses that absolutely wreck society and create huge gambling addictions and we and the government says like just a few hundred pound and then society deals with it any more any more questions on fees sorry just a very quick question and just just to double check that those fees were set in the gambling act 2005 sorry through your chair i didn't hear that question sorry sorry counselor jeffries was asking whether the fees were set uh as part of the gambling act in 2005 yes that is correct it's the home office regulation is the regulations they're through the gambling act regulations so those fees are in the statutory instrument of the gambling act regulations and we can only reach those statute fees yeah so we can go beyond what the regulation says states i don't know whether that helps to answer the question yes um the the clarification there on um when that was introduced very helpful thank you okay okay um any any further questions okay so then i i ask if we can approve these fees are they approved wonderful thank thank you very much um thank you uh so that concludes this part of the business committee uh thank you for everyone for attending uh we'll have a short pause and then there'll be a regulatory thing but thank you everybody thank you members thank you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you so Caroline and Guy we're going to start momentarily and again so we'll be considering this meeting informally and and then obviously the fees would continue until these ones are agreed whether that's through a council standing order provision which we have for some decisions or whether we then reconvene the regulatory licensing committee at a new date as soon as possible but um council mclouden council justin just moving so they can see you a bit better and then we get started and thank you and thank you guy as well for attending tonight okay okay you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you okay okay my name is council mcloud chair of the licensing committee members of the committee well there's only two of us here so in order council Justin are you here yes and I am also here I'm council mcloud we have a number of apologies from council French Humphreys and lawless okay so I'm gonna move in as quickly as possible agenda item one which is the minutes from the meeting held on the 15th of March hopefully we've got in front of us sorry through you chair I should just confirm that because we aren't core you won't be able to approve the minutes but you can just note them apologies yes so the purpose of this is to to hopefully informally approve everything and then once we work out what we need to do next we'll do that so we can't informally approve the minutes but are there any any items that we should be aware of or that you'd like to flag up council it's a pretty odd two-way conversation where I'm trying to have a group with one of the others okay that's great so are these minutes agreed then from what I know yes thank you declarations of interest are there any declarations either pecuniary or other or non-registrable interests no wonderful agenda item three review of fees is this is this something you're speaking to Ms Sharkey yes chair it is these are the discretionary fees what we term the discretionary fees that the council charges which will take effect with your approval will take effect on 1st of April this year I'm happy to take you quickly through the report in mind that you've read it so I can just answer any questions or points of clarification with the fees if that helps or would you like me to go through the report chair all the increases seem to be remarkably in the figure of 6.7% is that, what's the significance of 6.7% so that's the inflation rate that the council generally agreed but the fees the way these fees are set we have to take into account the compliance administration fee we took into account that there was the pay increase last year so they've not largely fluctuated the fees last year when we presented the report there was a major increase in the fees so it's kind of aligned the animal welfare fees those have increased because maybe differences in there because the animal welfare will always have to do a recharge to the vet's fees so when the vet's fees goes up every year that can affect the fees and charges that the council put out because we have to recoup the cost of running that so we have to do this does that help council? I mean there's nothing in any of these fees that's going to frighten anyone in any of these applications or lines of work it's about the average ones with residents monthly gas bill so I mean I hardly think anyone could object beyond the fact that they seem remarkably low that's a good thing to hear we're not trying to be punitive and am I right in thinking that we can't charge these to make a profit we charge these to cover the costs of the service itself so basically if we make a profit we have to have an annual review of the fees and reduce the fees because the licensing service is cost recovery neutral so we don't make any profit at all so that's why we review them on an annual basis and throughout the year so it may be that next year the fees might go up it might not go up so yeah we're not supposed to make a profit share that's cool thanks for that because I wasn't aware of that so now I understand it a lot better it's ok product of the Hemings case is that the Westminster yes oh gosh something stuck that you told me ok any other questions Councillor no further questions thank you and the same for me so I'm not sure, do we approve still or what do we do now Michael? if I can just get the committee to I guess either if you express support that would be noted and then we would then pass that on to the monitoring officer so rather than formally agreeing it would be to support the recommendations or the recommendation ok well we both support them I think that's right and that's right yeah thank you I think sorry sorry Ms Sharkey thank you chair I'm just mindful because obviously the recommendations is for the committee approval and I do hear what Michael is saying and I think it's important to get clarity with our legal advisor Guy my understanding is they've got to be approved so yeah I'll hand over through you chair I'll ask Guy to make a comment please thank you yes hi this is an unusual situation the fees are fees for the next financial year so therefore they're fees that need to be approved by the committee by the regulatory committee before the next financial year so when you're not core it and again maybe your committee advisor can deal with this where you're not core it you can't necessarily vote in or approve the actual fees for next year my concern is you need to do it before the next financial year happens I don't know whether there's any sort of rule that you can apply committee wise to overcome that I have to say on the detail of we're looking into I'm not really sure myself but if what would happen if we hadn't if we don't get this signed off by the first do we need to stick to the old fees and then we're losing cash is that what happens? yeah that's the problem and you're losing okay I understand how many are we short by? three can you grab them and bring them in? well no sorry the people that are in the licensed subcommittee don't count as the regulatory committee which I must admit I hadn't realised that I thought we were all part of the same thing and we were subset but we're not I think it might be worth clarifying from the committee side that I'm intending to speak to the monitoring officer tomorrow to see what provisions are in the existing constitution that might assist but failing that at the same time what I will be looking to do is trying to arrange another meeting of the committee for I think it would be not next week the week after which would mean the agenda would need to go out next week but I would need to speak to my head of governance and also then keep Guy and Caroline in the loop but as Guy said at the moment because we aren't court we can't formally approve them here just as an idea if we as was suggested at least show that we're largely in support of these could we not then have a quick online meeting rather than getting everyone to come in? we can't certain committees so if a committee is generally under the 1972 Act or has arrangements under it it has to be held in person whilst you can have hybrid arrangements like this it would only be certain committees like a licensing subcommittee where there's I guess a leeway where they could be held virtually but it wouldn't be this one I think Guy's got his hand up if he wants to correct me or if I've got that right you've got that right absolutely right and actually it's quite recent case Laura funny enough but basically the 1972 Act applies in relation to any of this business that we're looking at in terms of regulatory and these fees under these pieces of legislation only under the Licensing Act is there an ability for you to have a hybrid or indeed a meeting remotely so unfortunately it has to be a meeting in person effectively in the chamber or in the committee room okay we're working out whatever it is but yeah that's okay it was okay it can't be case law unfortunately okay so we've at least expressed our broad support for these measures is there anything else I need to do then what else can I do? no that concludes the meeting thank you very much for your attendance thank you for your support officers and thank you Councillor Justin as well
Summary
The council meeting primarily focused on reviewing and approving minutes from a previous session, discussing declarations of interest, and reviewing annual fees for various licenses. The meeting faced a significant procedural challenge due to a lack of quorum, which impacted decision-making capabilities.
Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes: The committee noted the minutes from the previous meeting but could not formally approve them due to the lack of quorum. There were no significant arguments or opposition noted. The implication is mainly procedural, delaying formal ratification until a quorate meeting can be convened.
Declarations of Interest: Members were asked to declare any pecuniary or registrable interests related to the meeting's agenda. No interests were declared, which streamlined the discussions but also highlighted the members' non-involvement in the issues discussed, ensuring impartiality in decision-making.
Review of Fees: The committee discussed the annual review of fees for various licenses, with proposed increases aligned with inflation rates. The discussion was straightforward, with members showing support for the fee adjustments. However, due to the lack of quorum, they could not formally approve the new fees, which may result in the council continuing to charge the old lower rates, potentially affecting the council's revenue.
Interesting Incident: The meeting's most notable aspect was the lack of quorum, which prevented formal decisions from being made. This procedural hiccup necessitates another meeting to resolve pending issues, illustrating the challenges in governance when attendance is insufficient.
Attendees
No attendees have been recorded for this meeting.