People living near Hove Museum said that they feared extensions to its alcohol licence would lead to more noise, public drinking and potentially weddings at the venue.
Objections from neighbours resulted in Brighton and Hove City Council holding a licensing panel hearing today (Monday 8 September).
Residents raised their concerns about the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust proposals for the museum in New Church Road.
The current licence restricts late-night alcohol sales until 11pm to 24 times a year. However, the museum trust said that the restriction was 12 times a year in its application.
As well as removing the late-night event restriction, the trust wants to extend café alcohol sales to an outside area next to Pembroke Crescent by the Jaipur Gate from 10am to 6pm.
Pembroke Crescent resident Julia Hamblin said that the museum café extending out into the grounds was already creating a nuisance because of the noise generated by people eating and drinking outside.
Despite draft conditions restricting alcohol service to people who were sitting at tables and served by waiting staff, she feared that the museum could become a noisy bar.
She said: “Nobody has complained because there’s a few erudite people sat in a museum pontificating over art while sipping Pimm’s. This is an entirely different proposals.
“These are not people having chats about Cézanne. These are people who are going to be sitting in that bar, drinking potentially all day. I hear that staff must be there but that’s today.
“The point is that once this licence has been put in place, however this is presented, anything foreseen can change.”
Another Pembroke Crescent resident, Martin Davis, raised concerns about weddings at the museum – described as “perfect for hosting small and intimate weddings and parties”.
Mr Davis was also concerned that the application could allow for live music, plays and recorded music indoors and outdoors from 10am to 11pm daily.
He said: “There is no control over what will be done in the future and the fact there have been no complaints so far, about the few events, we don’t mind them, we don’t care about those.
“We are trying to future-proof this for ourselves because there is no control over the future.”
Those making representations at the hearing said that none of the neighbours were aware that the museum café had held an alcohol licence since 2013.
Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust visitor experience manager Shaun Doyle said that there were no plans to operate as a bar, introduce weddings at the museum or have performances of plays or music outdoors.
Mr Doyle said that the café was only open when the museum was open, from 10am to 5pm from Thursday to Monday and closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The trust was considering extending opening hours to 6pm which was reflected in the application.
The licence would be for seven days a week because private views can take place on any day. Late opening would only be for special events.
He also said that, in the past two years, only three or four events had taken place outside and he was happy to keep the outdoor licence limited to 6pm with the option of using temporary event notices for events finishing later.
Last year the museum had more than 41,000 visitors and held 15 ticketed “museum lates” where food and drink was provided for sale, whereas at private views alcohol is complementary.
Mr Doyle said: “We have our own restrictions on these events. They’re all ticketed events so they’re booked in advance to control the numbers. Our seating capacity is only 60 and if we have a standing event, it’s 120.
“If it’s a standing event then no red wine is allowed to be consumed. After all, we’re a museum.
“We’re not trying to have a rave in this place. We’re looking at having people come along for a pleasant evening preview or attending talks.”
The three councillors on the panel – Ivan Lyons, David McGregor and Ollie Sykes – retired to make their decision which should be made public within five working days.
The more I read about these Hoverians, the more I despise them.
You just can’t imagine the riotous behaviour of attendees to events at Hove Museum – the loud music, the fights… It would be Hell on Earth!
This just comes off as being snobbish
“She said: “Nobody has complained because there’s a few erudite people sat in a museum pontificating over art while sipping Pimm’s. This is an entirely different proposals.”
The art worls is full of violence. Just look at the number of artists that have been killed in knife and other fights!
And art discussions can get pretty heated to.
No-one who wants to spend a whole day drinking does so in a museum, that’s ridiculous. The neighbours’ concerns are understandable if they value a quiet street, but factually, the museum’s track record and stated operating model don’t support the idea of “future rave bar with weddings”.
Piss up at the Museum, New church road riots coming soon. people doing lines of coke of old paintings, E tables free with each super strength lager you buy, the carnage……..lol
Some people really do need to get a life, if a later licence helps keep it viable i can’t see a problem. I live next to a pub we recently had a new resident move near that started to complain right away. If sad people complain about a little noise they should move.
I think where peopel complain the most is about new noise
Several years ago friend moved very close to a pub. He carefully checked out the licence conditions – times of music etc etc
All was fine until a new manager was installed and started breaking the conditions – playing later, not closing windows after a certain time, not stopping people from drinking outside.
Cue complaints from lots of people about the breach of the conditions.
Because the venue was in breach of their conditions the residents complaints were upheld.
Can’t complain if venue is workign within it’s conditions but you can if the venue breaches them.
And that I think is a reasonable policy for any council to apply.
Sounds very reasonable to me. These are the rules of your license conditions; follow them, or you’ll be awarded consequences. I don’t think that is a particularly difficult concept.