A convenience store owner was shocked to learn that he was committed to limiting spirits sales to standard-size bottles when premium brands were often in smaller sizes.
Joseph Pdeen is in the process of opening Harvest, in Church Road, Hove, and wants to sell alcohol from 8am to 5am daily.
The premises currently has a late-night refreshment licence which permits the sale of food, hot drinks and soft drinks until 5am.
Mr Pdeen told a Brighton and Hove City Council licensing panel that he would surrender this valuable licence if he was granted a late-night alcohol licence.
The panel was told that the restriction on sales of miniature bottles of spirits had been agreed with Sussex Police which did not object to the application.
But Mr Pdeen told the virtual meeting on Thursday 8 June that the restriction agreed with Sussex Police prevented him from selling bottles smaller than 70cl.
He was told that he could make a separate application to vary his licence if the restriction prevented him from selling, for example, 50cl bottles of premium brands such as Brighton Gin.
Hove residents Yasemin Keskin spoke on behalf of neighbours concerned about the increasing availability of alcohol in central Hove and worried about street drinkers late at night.
She raised concerns about broken bottles in the streets near her home in Grand Avenue.
Mr Pdeen, who has three other off-licence businesses, said that the law prevented him from selling to people who were drunk.
Restrictions agreed with Sussex Police also included no strong beers or ciders with more than 5.5 per cent ABV (alcohol by volume).
Sussex Police also asked that no more than 15 per cent of the shop’s floor space be used for alcohol and that no promotional advertising for drink be visible from the street.
The licensing panel was made up of three councillors – Andrei Czolak, Paul Nann and Kerry Pickett.
Councillor Pickett asked if Mr Pdeen would agree to reduce the amount of floor space occupied by alcohol and he agreed to 10 per cent.
Church Road is in one of the busier parts of Brighton and Hove where the council operates tougher licensing rules, requiring a business seeking a new drinks licence to show exceptional circumstances.
Mr Pdeen’s agent, Oisin Daly, reminded councillors that the premises already had a late-night licence, albeit not for alcohol.
The panel retired to make its decision which should be made public within five working days.
I remain steadfast in my opinion that no-one needs to buy alcohol at 5am in the morning, and Brighton has so many drinking outlets, there are no exceptional circumstance, that I can think of, here either for this licensing request.
A solid no from me.
4am meh, what I don’t understand is why you can buy spirits at 8am… Should be 12 noon for all businesses.
No thanks, I live nearby and it’s obvious it will end up becoming a magnet for noisy aggressive drunks and drug dealers at kicking out time for local bars. Go around that part of Church Road early on a saturday or sunday morning and you’ll see glasses, bottles and empty coke wraps over the pavements of the nearby streets (thanks Gin Tub patrons!).
This article seems vastly out of date though – the picture used was taken at least three weeks ago. The Harvest application you can seen there has been removed from the window and replaced with notices that a Utopia Dining, a healthy Mediterranean restaurant is opening there soon. What’s going on with this article?
We have enough alcohol on sale in the vacinity of this shop. No more us needed.