A restaurant owner said that the council’s refusal to grant him a late-night refreshment licence because he was running a new business amounted to discrimination.
At a licensing panel hearing today (Monday 16 June), Bahaaeldin Abdelalim, 43, who owns the Station Grill, in Queen’s Road, Brighton, said that long-standing businesses and big-name companies such as KFC, McDonald’s and Popeyes were allowed to trade until 3am.
Mr Abdelalim has applied to Brighton and Hove City Council for a licence that would permit him to operate until 3am daily and even offered to restrict food sales to delivery-only after midnight.
The application before the panel was his second in the past year. His previous application to trade beyond 11pm was refused in November and is currently the subject of an appeal.
Mr Abdelalim has even trained and qualified as a door supervisor as well as taking work in a kebab shop in West Street to gain experience of the late-night economy.
He repeatedly told the panel of three councillors – Julie Cattell, Paul Nann and Kerry Pickett – that he had no plans to sell alcohol from his restaurant.
But the panel was told that Queen’s Road is in a busy part of Brighton where the council has a policy of not permitting new late-night premises.
Mr Abdelalim said: “In Queen’s Road there are two, three or more shops – it doesn’t matter. They have late refreshment licences already because they are older than me. They have the opportunity to have the shops before myself.
“People like me who are younger and got their shops recently, they are not allowed to sell so this is discrimination.
“They (the council) gave the old people the right to enjoy their premises, make money, sell food and can’t withdraw their licence or put any more conditions.”
At the hearing, Mr Abdelalim said that there was demand for food after 11pm but he was losing money because he ended up having to close and throw away food that was still fresh.
He said that he was frustrated at having to turn people away and bin what was left only to replace it with fresh food in the morning.
Councillor Cattell asked why so much food was going to waste and Mr Abdelalim said that 15kg was the smallest quantity of park-cooked gyros that he could buy.
Hannah Staplehurst, from Sussex Police, said that the force recommended that the panel refuse the licence. She put forward draft licence conditions in case the panel approved the application.
The force was concerned about crime levels in the Queen’s Road area, with 283 crimes in the past year, including nine sexual assaults, other violent crimes and thefts.
Ms Staplehurst that said during a licensing patrol at 11pm on Saturday 10 May, a large group of people congregating in the street outside the various takeaways blocked the pavement.
She said: “We were unable to access a specific premises due to the crowd growing along the pavement.
“At this time, Station Grill, at 62 Queen’s Road, was closing and this dispersed some of the groups and encouraged them to continue towards the station.
“At 11.45pm we visited Queen’s Road again to visit the late-night refreshment premises and crowds were less busy and manageable inside the premises.
“However, we were unable to stop due to a few arrests that were taking place on the opposite side of the road because police officers had been assaulted and Queen’s Road was busy with a number of police vehicles and police officers.”
Even though the business had no plans to sell alcohol, Ms Staplehurst said that the sale of food and drink into the early hours encouraged people to stay in the area.
The panel retired to make its decision which should be made public within five working days.
What a ridiculous notion. Disagreement with a licensing panel decision is not the same as being discriminated against.
Default mode,
Absolute BS! Playing the racism card because he didn’t get what he wanted. He cannot compare his “grill” to large well established and managed brands such as Macs and KFC! More likely location. These people seem to forget reasons why the council refuses! Cant believe this hit then news and is a provocative news item.
Except it was nothing to do with his race, did you not read the article ? The ‘discrimination’ was that older shops had the licence, but his premises was new the council was not keen to license additional late-night activity. That doesn’t particulary sound like discrimination, but the only person to mention race was yourself
If anything his claiming age discrimination
Let. Him. Cook.
Why does he not give the ‘fresh’ food away instead of binning it?
Send in the environmental health to check these premises. Review whether he is suitable to be even allowed a licence to trade. Stop the people delivering his takeaways to ensure they are not delivering other substances.
There is no necessity for anyone to have a late night food license beyond 1am (apart from a handful of seafront establishments serving the late night night clubs) and certainly not in a residential area. Trains cease to run at midnight so it’s not for commuters eating on route home ……… and it encourages those establishments to acyts as fronts for other under the counter or home delivery sales ……..
Brighton needs to up its game and shed its tarnished reputation as a drink and drink fuelled city without jeopardy – turn off the lights by 11.30pm on a school night and 1am weekends. Clean up the streets.
Why does burger king McDonald’s on old shoreham Rd asking for 24 hour licences are these establishment doing drugs.
In recent times Italian restaurants are caught doing drugs on side.
This grill guy is a slippery fish trained as a door man worked in a another shop why?
Stop being racist and projecting your farage & tommy nonsense 85% of country is white English so being on benefits religion ect will be high for English public.