Police have objected to a proposal by an off-licence owner to sell alcohol until 2am over two weekends running.
Amira Makram, 44, submitted a “temporary event notice” (TEN) to Brighton and Hove City Council for Thingslicious, in Preston Street, Brighton.
Her convenience store has a licence until midnight and she wants to be able to sell drink until 2am on Saturday 26 October and Sunday 27 October and the following weekend.
At a council licensing panel hearing today (Tuesday 22 October), Ms Makram’s agent, Graham Hopkins, of GT Licensing, set out her reasons.
Mr Hopkins said that the aim was to see if it would be worth applying for late licences over the Christmas and new year period.
In the future, he said, Ms Makram would consider applying to vary the trading hours at her business.
The shop, at 83 Preston Street, sold drink until 2am over the weekend before last, having submitted a temporary event notice to the council.
Mr Hopkins told the panel – councillors Ivan Lyons, Paul Nann and Kerry Pickett – that most of the customers taking advantage of later trading were residents or staff from nearby shops and restaurants.
He said that businesses regularly used temporary event notices to extend their hours for special occasions.
Mr Hopkins said: “Nowhere does it say that temporary event notices cannot be used to temporarily extend a premises licence. We do it all the time for public houses, for various locations. It’s a lot more common.
“There is nothing in the law that prohibits. The guidance indicates it is a light-touch process which means, in my mind, it can be used for basically anything that is legal and legitimate.”
Councillor Nann asked whether Ms Makram could carry out market research instead of using a temporary event notice to find out whether later opening might be worthwhile.
In response, Mr Hopkins emphasised the legality of the application.
Sussex Police objected to the later hours because, the force said, they would not promote the “licensing objectives” – as required by law.
In particular, Inspector Dan Eagle said in a written objection, the later trading could undermine the objectives of preventing crime and disorder and public nuisance and promoting public safety.
Crime statistics for the past 12 months within a few hundred yards of the business included 287 crimes, of which 68 were violent and 28 occurred between midnight and 2am.
Sussex Police licensing officer Mark Thorogood told the panel that the force would support an extension of the licensed hours over Christmas and the new year.
He said that Ms Makram also owned Sam’s Offie at the other end of Preston Street and had a 3am licence there so she would be aware of the demand for late opening in the area.
Mr Thorogood said that the force did not support the use of temporary event notices to extend licensed trading hours when not linked with an event.
He said: “It’s not in the spirit of a TEN. It’s worth noting when you operate under a TEN there are no conditions attached to it such as staff training (and) CCTV.
“This is because a TEN is seen as a light touch and as such a low risk. We don’t see applying to sell alcohol from midnight to 2am as a light touch.”
Mr Thorogood said that the council’s licensing policy encouraged temporary event notices for “bona fide” community events and did not encourage their use for extending hours of operation.
The panel retired to make its decision which should be made public as soon as practicably possible.
What a pathetic waste of public money! If it gets refused then people will just go elsewhere or make alternative plans. If they know the shop cannot sell alcohol AFTER Midnight then common sense tells you to stock up in advance.
But then you must agree that it prevents impulse purchasing of alcohol in the early hours of the morning, right?
You have to be desperate to want to buy a drink after midnight anyway.
Whilst I don’t agree with much of what Saudi Arabia thinks and does… On their attitude to alcohol they are spot on !
This isn’t Saudi Arabia, and our community is allowed to be out enjoying freedom, not shackled to some medieval regime and religion, that only survives upon Stockholders Syndrome, like all religions.
The actual relevant point here is that if our young people come away from clubs and pubs, and our homeless need to take to something to ease the pain, then let it be alcohol. The alternative is drugs, sold on every corner, freely available at The Level, and a darn sight cheaper too. Denying alcohol is promotion of drugs. We don’t want that. It’s already happened with youngsters needing ID just to get a beer, so they buy drugs instead. Figures show that young people drinking alcohol is on the decrease, but what they don’t show is that is matched by the increase of drug use, because people do one or the other. That’s the way it is.
Expecting people to just go home to bed is naive. There is a real consequence to these decisions, and it isn’t as easy as it first appears. The genie isn’t going back into the bottle, no matter what we wish.
Edit spellcheck: Stockholm Syndrome
I think these corner shops lots of which sell booze around the clock are the problem and should not be allowed to sell it after 11pm. Bars/clubs/restaurants mange customers drinking late at night with security.
The nighttime economy of Brighton and hove would be a lot safer, enjoyable and a lot more prosperous if they banned these nasty little corner shops from selling alcohol after 9pm.
If I go into a pub drunk at 10pm and ask for an entire bottle of vodka, it isn’t going to happen but I can roll around the corner absolutely plastered to buy enough alcohol to sink a battle ship, and drink it without any supervision and no problemo. Why, because it’s an off-licence not a bar.
Absolute hypocritical nonsense in the licencing system which fuels violence by shop owners who couldn’t give a monkeys
There is lots of 24 hour off licence type shops in Brighton, 2 with in 5 mins walk from the shop in question.