A café owner has been granted slightly longer hours to serve alcohol at his business in central Brighton.
Joshua Theed applied to extend the hours on the drinks licence for 2 Church Street – a café / bar a few doors down from the William the Fourth pub.
The existing licence permitted the sale of alcohol from 8am to 9pm from Monday to Thursday, from 8am to 10pm on Friday and Saturday and from 9am to 6pm on Sundays.
Mr Theed applied to extend the hours from 8am to 11pm every day even though this would breach Brighton and Hove City Council’s licensing policy.
Church Street is in the council’s “cumulative impact zone” where tighter rules for venues selling alcohol are intended to try to reduce drink-related crime, disorder and public nuisance.
After a council licensing panel hearing, Mr Theed was granted permission to serve alcohol until 10pm daily.
The venue must abide by additional conditions, proposed by Sussex Police, that hot and cold non-alcoholic drinks are available at all times.
Food menus must be clearly displayed and should include hot food options.
Mr Theed said that he planned to buy a grill and offer more hot food.
Sussex Police and the North Laine Community Association objected to the original application to extend the licensed hours until 11pm.
The community association’s licensing co-ordinator Sandy Crowhurst said that 2 Church Street was a “pub by stealth” and questioned the food offer because, after several refits, the venue had no kitchen.
The licensing panel, made up of three councillors, said: “The panel appreciates the concerns of those making representations and considers that an extension of hours to 11pm would not be appropriate in this challenging area and can see no exceptional circumstances to depart from the policy in this case.
“However, the panel does consider that an extension of hours to 10pm every day for the sale of alcohol along with some further conditions to reinforce the café nature of the premises is appropriate.”
Licenseing panel policy is so out of date. Never seen any trouble here in the evenings. It’s the town center surly that’s where you want the bars and pubs lol keep it contained.