The meeting was scheduled to be a public hearing to discuss an application for the variation of a premises licence under the provisions of the Licensing Act 2003. The applicant had requested permission to extend the operating hours of their premises, and the sub-committee was to consider representations from responsible authorities and other people before deciding whether to grant the variation.

Proud City, 4 Minster Pavement, London, EC3R 7PP

The application was submitted by City Galleries Limited, for their premises at Proud City, which is described in the report pack as a cabaret club, restaurant, and nightclub.

The application sought permission to extend Proud City's operating hours for the supply of alcohol for consumption on and off the premises, the exhibition of film, live and recorded music, and performance of dance. They were also seeking permission to extend the hours that the premises could be open to the public, and to extend their hours for the provision of late night refreshment.

Currently, Proud City's licence allows it to trade until 2am Sunday to Thursday, and 3am Friday and Saturday. The application sought permission to extend this to 3am every day, and to 5am Thursday to Saturday. The applicant had been in discussions with the City of London Police and the City of London Corporation's Environmental Health and Licensing Teams, and these discussions had led to them agreeing a set of conditions they would accept if the application was successful.

These conditions included the following:

• The extension of hours would only be granted until the 1st of October 2025.
• The venue's capacity would be limited to 350 people after 3am.
• After 2am, customers would only be able to enter and exit the venue via the Mincing Lane entrance.
• No new customers would be admitted to the venue after 2am.

In addition to the representations made by the City of London Police and the City of London Corporation, the sub-committee was also scheduled to consider a representation made by the City of London's planning department, as well as representations from seven other people. The other people included two elected members for the City of London Corporation: Deputy Marianne Fredericks and Councillor Aaron D’Souza.

All of the representations from other people opposed the application, arguing that it would be likely to lead to an increase in noise and antisocial behaviour, undermining the licensing objectives in the Licensing Act 2003¹ of prevention of crime and disorder, prevention of public nuisance and public safety.

The representation from the planning department made a similar point, arguing that, the increased hours of licensable activities are likely to lead to an increase in the level of disturbance to neighbouring residential occupiers, contrary to the licensing objective ‘prevention of public nuisance’. They argued that this would be the case because, the surrounding area would be very quiet between 3am and 5am, and so the proposed conditions would not be sufficient to prevent noise nuisance.