McDonald's round the clock hopes rejected by Brighton and Hove councillors
McDonald’s hopes of round the clock burgers in Brighton were dashed by violent and rowdy customers and drunks passing out in their toilets.
Sussex Police said that in the past year officers had been sent half a dozen times to deal with trouble involving people on the premises or who had just left.
In September a teenage girl was sexually assaulted after being followed out of the Western Road branch by three men – and a boy with her was attacked and injured.
On another occasion a female member of staff was attacked after work.
Twice men have fallen asleep in the toilets. One was drunk and had to be treated by paramedics.
The other was found when staff opened up in the morning. He had been locked in, undetected, when workers locked up the night before.
And a gang of youths held a food fight and threw condoms around a few months ago.
The fast food chain wanted a 24-hour licence at weekends.
It also wanted to close an hour later – at midnight – on Sundays to Thursdays and on the same days start serving food and drink an hour and a half earlier – from 5am.
But the burger chain’s proposals were rejected by a Brighton and Hove City Council licensing panel on Wednesday.
The panel heard that Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, the Brighton and Hove divisional police commander, opposed the application by McDonald’s.
He said that there were so many premises in the area selling food and drink late into the night that crime and disorder had reached problem levels.
Green councillor Jason Kitcat, who represents Regency ward, also objected to the application from McDonald’s.
Like the police, he said that he feared an increase in noise, public nuisance and crime.
The panel was reminded that Western Road falls within the council’s “cumulative impact area” – a part of town where the number of pubs, clubs and cafés is at saturation point.
If councillors receive objections to proposals for new licences and longer hours they can only approve them if applicants can show that they will not add to the town centre’s problems.
McDonald’s failed to convince the panel.
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The problems detailed above at this branch of McDonald’s are obviously not created by McDonald’s. It is wrong to penalise them for it. The problems are caused by drinlking elsewhere and this is what the council need to deal with. As usual they like the business that drunks bring into the city and therefore do nothing about it.