A Hove off-licence applied to stay open until 4am at weekends but has been refused an extension to its existing licence.
The Lord of Wine, at 33 Western Road, Hove, has a licence to sell alcohol daily from 7am to 11pm.
The owner Erkut Ogut, 41, asked Brighton and Hove City Council to allow the shop to trade until 3am from Monday to Friday and 4am on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Sussex Police and the council licensing team objected to the application when it went before a licensing panel made up of three councillors.
The police and council licensing team both said that the business had previously breached the conditions of its licence and was in part of Brighton and Hove where tougher licensing rules apply.
At the hearing on Wednesday 9 July, police licensing officer Claire Abdelkader said that Mr Ogut had not offered any exceptional reasons why his business should have extended hours, contrary to council policy.
She said that a licence check carried out on Wednesday 4 June found that most conditions were being followed but staff could not operate the closed-circuit television (CCTV) system. And records were not up-to-date.
Ms Abdelkader added that Mr Ogut had not considered the risks and challenges of selling alcohol into the early hours.
A few new licences to sell alcohol have been issued in the busiest parts of Brighton and Hove but, Ms Abdelkader said, the trading hours were limited or covered “exceptional offerings” such as drinks from a specific geographical area.
The panel was told that in the past year, Sussex Police had recorded 3,157 incidents within a 400-yard radius of the business.
Of those, 818 were crimes – mainly violence (30 per cent), theft (25 per cent) and criminal damage (10 per cent).
Ms Abdelkader asked the panel to refuse the application.
Council licensing officer Donna Lynsdale said that there were no exceptional circumstances and also asked the panel to refuse the application.
Mr Ogut said he wanted to expand his hours because of the economic situation. He said that neighbouring off-licences had 3am and 5am licences.
The decision letter from the council said: “The panel appreciates the economic reasons for this application but do not consider that any exceptional circumstances to depart from the special policy have been shown.
“The previous breaches of conditions do not give the panel confidence that the applicant could manage the risk involved in granting such an extension and does not consider a security condition would be adequate or able to deal with risk … especially once customers had left the premises.
“Overall, the panel consider that granting this variation is very likely to add to the cumulative impact of problems already in the area and thus undermine the licensing objectives.”
The panel was made up of three councillors – Sam Parrott, Kerry Pickett and Alison Thomson.
Mr Orgut has 21 days to appeal against the decision.
Its the late shops that are causing the problems in our city. They should not be allowed to sell alcohol after 11pm. Pubs, bars, nightclubs have security when open late so it is these that should be allowed to open late.
Spot on, nobody has ever caused trouble in Brighton after leaving a nighclub or pub.
Ha! 😂😂😂
Couldn’t agree more. Shutter all the off-licences at 10pm and leave the pubs and bars to stay open later and you’ll notice a massive drop in crime. Most of the crimes are the day drinkers with the tins of cider
One has to more generally wonder why alcohol needs to be brought in the twilight hours.
At last the licensing panel have made a sensible decision. Alcohol is far too easily available.
Brighton is being destroyed by alcohol, drunkenness and anti-social behaviour ,usually connected with alcohol. Alcohol is Britain’s most harmful drug and responsible for more trips to A&E than anything else.
We need a reversion to the licensing hours that were in place when I was a young man, namely that you couldn’t buy alcohol in a shop or pub after 11pm Mon- Sat and 10.30 pm on a Sunday.
Bars, clubs, pubs are not the problem in Brighton and Hove. When they are open late they have security. They don’t let people in if had too much and stop people drinking when they have had too much. Which is why the council is right to stop this application for a shop to serve to 4am.
The problem in our city are the late shops selling alcohol to anyone, so the way forward is to stop the shops selling alcohol after 11pm and give late licences to places like clubs where drinking can be controlled.
Toooooooo. many of these places have booze licences, how about reducing their numbers to see the effect on local areas, is it possible booze is against their religion but ok to supply it day and night to the benefit of no-one ?? this shop keeper states he needs a booze licecence extension because he wants to make more money, instead of extending his licence hours cut back on all of them to treat ALL local residents with some decency, grabbing a bottle of wine on the way home with a pizza but this greed, nothing else.
The standard excuse being, he’s got opening until 5am I want as well, and the next one and the next one and the next one and whole areas saturated with booze extensions. There should be valid reasons given for why it should be allowed and not for. “why not” This benefits no-one.