A seafront café can keep selling alcohol after confirming that it planned to remain a food-led venue.
The newly rebuilt Meeting Place Café, in Kings Esplanade, Hove, had applied for a licence that would permit off-sales and allow customers to drink whether or not they were seated.
But a Brighton and Hove City Council licensing panel hearing on Friday 13 June was told that these aspects of the application had been withdrawn.
Conditions attached to the licence for the venue, owned by Bulent Ekinci, 50, restrict the sale of alcoholic drinks to people sitting at tables.
Substantial food and non-alcoholic drinks must also be available at all times, with menus on display. Alternatives to glass would have to be used in outside areas.
The original application prompted 24 objections from neighbours and one from Green councillor Ollie Sykes, who represents Brunswick and Adelaide ward.
Five of the objections were withdrawn after the licence application was amended – and a sixth at the panel hearing.
Hikmet Tabak, 63, who runs the café and is the designated premises supervisor, with day-to-day responsibility for alcohol sales, said that the business had listened to neighbours and the police.
Mr Tabak had applied to sell larger measures for cocktails and pitchers and was told that a venue was required to offer smaller measures such as half pints and small glasses of wine as well as measuring spirits by 25ml and 35ml.
As long as those measures were available then cocktails and pitchers could be sold, the hearing was told.
The council has written to the business to notify it of the decision reached by the panel which was made up of three Labour councillors – Julie Cattell, David McGregor and Tobias Sheard.
The council’s decision letter said: “The panel was impressed by the applicant and his proposals for the premises and the co-operation with the police.
“Most of the concerns expressed in the representations were, the panel considered, dealt with by the amended application and the police and environmental protection conditions agreed.”
And you wonder why the pub industry is on its knees when they keep giving cafes and coffee shops alcohol licences.
The meeting place cafe is now a restaurant. I live opposite very impressed with the new build. I think the problem in Brighton and Hove are the corner 24hr shops that sell alcohol.
And the prices in pubs, the low margins, and societal changes meaning people generally drink less, or drink at home.
How long before an application for the conditions to be removed as they will be onerous on the business and affect the viability?
Who knows? But if they can bring strong reasoning and a compelling case, then it is their entitlement to do so.
Judging by the number of people there when I visited a couple of weeks ago & the fact they charge £13.50 for a brie & bacon sandwich (although very nice), I don’t think viability is going to be an issue. Plus, they’ve obviously spent a lot of money & created a really nice building. So good luck to them!
Yes, I only wish the council would look after what is their responsibility, seafront railings, shelters etc, what should come under yearly maintenance. Private enterprise puts them to shame.
Licensing is the councils responsibility.
Hence why there is a licensing committee and panels to determine applications.
Unless of course you favour businesses being able to just do what they like?
I love the new building and wish them well with their new approach to local catering. For sure, they should have an alcohol selling licence, as long as it doesn’t just become another seafront bar.
I also note that the next seafront cafe, a few hundred yards to the west, still serves the traditional Saturday morning fry up breakfast, and that’s more what I want – rather than an artisan bread sandwich, or a fake-eco coffee with the inflated almond milk surcharge.
I do wonder where the restaurants and bars will go in this city – or how many will have to close down? The pubs are already empty in the week, and one old favourite of mine (for thirty years!) now charges £30.50 for a bottle of house red. So we can’t afford to go there any more. That cheap house red is maybe £7 in a supermarket? So that’s why people drink at home, or invite friends over to dinner.
Similarly, my nearest seafront bar (Rockwater) is charging £7.50 for the pint of beer I would normally choose, or £6.80 for the cheaper pint of dishwater. No after work beers for me.
Me and my mates already cut down our pub visits to once a fortnight. Now we can’t even afford to do that.
How did everything get so expensive, in relation to what you can reasonably earn?
There is no restaurant in Brighton I can afford to go to. Not one. And yet I work all the time.