A distillery that offers tours faces objections from neighbours to its application for a later licence so that visits can take place in the evening.
Madame Jennifer Distillery, in the Poets Corner area, has applied to Brighton and Hove City Council to extend its opening hours.
If successful, it would operate from from 9am to 9.30pm from Sunday to Thursday and from 9am to 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
The business, owned by Ian Curtis, 51, and Inger Smith, 52, at 83a Montgomery Street, Hove, runs distillery tours and has an existing licence that allows customers to drink at the premises and buy drinks to take away.
Currently, the business opens from 9am to 5pm on Mondays, from 9am to 9.30pm from Tuesday to Saturday and from noon to 4pm on a Sunday.
Tours are restricted to people who pre-book, with no more than 10 participants at a time.
Four people have objected to the application, citing public nuisance, so the application is due to go before a licensing panel consisting of three councillors on Friday (20 March).
The distillery has agreed a draft change to its licence conditions which currently restricts alcohol sales to Madame Jennifer Distillery products. The proposed change would permit sales from other independent producers.
The application said that all licensable activity would take place indoors and the business did not intend to operate as a “high-capacity drinking venue”, with any on-site drinking strictly controlled.
The application said: “At present, the licence includes different authorised hours for the sale by retail of alcohol and for when the premises is open to the public which can cause unnecessary complexity.
“The purpose of the proposed variation is to align these hours so that licensable activities and public opening hours are consistent and easier to manage, without changing the overall nature or scale of the operation.”
One anonymous objector raised concerns about noise. The objector, whose details were redacted by the council, said: “When we purchased this property, we did so with the understanding and reassurance that the businesses operated during daytime hours only.
“This was an important factor in our decision. A change to the licensing terms would have a significantly negative effect on the residential area/community as well as our home environment.”
Another anonymous objector said: “Both my partner and I have careers that require early starts on weekdays and often at weekends.
“We rely on a quiet environment in the evenings in order to rest and maintain our work schedules.
“Given the distillery’s location within a residential courtyard surrounded by terraced homes, we are extremely concerned about the impact that extended operating hours would have on our quality of life.”
The council licensing panel hearing is due to start at 10am on Friday (20 March). The hearing is scheduled for webcast.
I believe we’ve discussed this before, but I think objections should have a basic identifier, as it can significantly impact the quality of the objection itself, in my opinion.
This doesn’t mean it has to be personally identifiable; Chris made an excellent point about why that shouldn’t be the case, and someone else demonstrated that point at the right moment. However, labels like Neighbour Resident, Local Resident, Resident in Ward Area, or Resident of Brighton can all influence the weight and meaning of an objection about noise disruption – whether a neighbour directly affected or someone who is against more on principle should be considered differently.
If you move a lamppost 2 inches to the right, you’ll get B&H residents complaining. Ignore them or tell them to find a more useful hobby
Then why do they need planning permission or licensing permission if there is no change then carry on
The residents should come first.
There are plenty of places to go and have a drink
Do they have a copper still? Do they buy in vodka spirit put some botanicals in give some codswallop backstory and charge £45 the whole gin thing is a scam. So in a residential area NO all it is, is a change of use from domestic to commercial No
This is not a change of use. They already operate.
Benjamin is right that this isn’t a change of use—the distillery is already operating. The real question for Hove is whether extending hours slightly will genuinely cause nuisance or not.
With small, pre-booked groups and everything indoors, it seems reasonable if properly managed—but neighbours’ concerns about evening noise in a residential area shouldn’t be dismissed either. This is exactly what licensing panels are for: finding a fair balance.
It’s a tiny extension when you look at it; it’s already operating until 9:30 pm five days a week. If there were a genuine concern about noise nuisance, it would have likely been raised already and evidenced as part of the objection. With this in mind, on this occasion, the objections are quite weak in this regard. And unfortunately, it’s not really about balance; there simply needs to be a valid reason for a refusal, otherwise, this permission should reasonably be granted.
I don’t think the neighbours will see it as a tiny extension. They have already expressed their concern about the noise going on every night so why would they want to extend those hours? I know the people who own the building, and as far as I know the workshops are open between 9:00 and 18:00 Monday to Sunday. Have they been consulted? It seems unlikely because in the past we have contacted them about pallets piling up against the wall. They dealt with it immediately, and it has never re-occurred. They are very well liked around here, so when it got to the point of the council meeting, I thought they would’ve been consulted but there’s nothing to say they have been.