Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. There were no apologies received.

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relating to items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest received regarding any item on the agenda.

Review Application

NOTED

1. The introduction by Ms Green, Licensing Team Manager, including:

a.    The Licensing Sub-Committee (LSC) were to consider the review application of The Hart in Southgate. The review application was submitted in November by Mr Ktorakis in light of the number of complaints received by the council and licensing breaches that had been witnessed by officers.

b.    A mediation had been attempted to encourage some minor variation with the manager and licence holder, but this wasn’t forthcoming. As issues continued, there was no option but to review the licence. Since this review application was submitted there has been a lot of progress.

c.     The review sought to modify conditions and reduce hours; it proposed to vary the DPS and recommended transferring the licence, as the licence holder was not often at the premises.

d.    The recent progress included discussions between the licence holder and Mr Ktorakis about a number of strong conditions which had been agreed; a transfer application was in hand ready to be submitted today, and a new DPS who was involved with the transfer company, with a timeframe for when they would be on the licence.

e.    Given the strengthened conditions agreed and withdrawal of the Police representation, the Licensing Authority no longer sought reduction of hours, as they believe the conditions address the concerns, a new management was going to be in place and the review process had driven home the seriousness of what was needed.

f.      As such it was only sought for the conditions to be rubber stamped today by the LSC.

2. Mr Ktorakis confirmed that he had nothing further to add.

3. Mr Lavell, representing the licence holder, made the following statement:

a.    Ms Green had summarised the position perfectly. Effectively there was a lack of a precise point of contact for the authority to contact the operator, which also created a lack of cohesion on-site.

b.    Everything that had been done had refined and improved the conditions on the licence.

c.     Steps were being taken to make Mr Vahedi, who was the Director of the Premises Licence Holder company and general manager of the premises, the new designated premises supervisor. He would be found on-site and there were conditions relating to his presence on-site.

d.    All of the relevant information was provided in the report and he thanked officers for their considerable time in helping to bring this together, to the point where there were now agreed conditions and a way forwards.

4. In response, the following questions and comments were received:

a.    Cllr Bedekova expressed that she hoped the new DPS was aware of the responsibility and conditions they were expected to comply with, so that the issues that had taken place at the premises previously did not repeat themselves. Mr Lavell responded that previously there had been no confidence from officers that this would be the case when they visited the premises at any time. Moving forward, Mr Vahedi had provided his personal mobile number to officers from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.