Agenda item

The report of Chief Officer Elections and Regulatory requests Members consideration for an application to vary a premises licence held by 2 Sardi 12 Harrogate Road, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6HJ

The report of the Chief Officer Elections and Regulatory presented an application to vary a premises licence made by Mr Antonio Pinna, for 2 Sardi, 12 Harrogate Road, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6HJ.

In attendance at the hearing were:

·  Mr Antonio Pinna – Applicant

·  Ms L Rudas – Applicant’s Partner

·  Ms H Woellner – Resident

·  Mr J Chadwick – Resident

·  Ms M Thompson – Resident

·  Cllr Eleanor Thomson – Ward Councillor

The Legal Officer set out the procedure for the hearing and the Licensing Officer presented the application.

The Licensing Sub Committee was informed of the following points:

·  The premises currently have the benefit of a premises licence with the following activity and hours: Sale by retail of alcohol, for consumption on the premises, every day 11:00 until 17:00 hours.

·  A copy of the existing premises licence details was attached to the submitted report at Appendix A.

·  The applicant is Mr Antonio Pinna.

·  The application is to:

o  Extend the terminal time for sale by retail of alcohol, from 17:00 to 22:00 hours each day.

o  The applicant had also included recorded music on the application form from 9:30am until 22:30 am, but this activity is de-regulated between these hours and therefore does not need to be applied for. A copy of the redacted application form was appended to the submitted report at Appendix B.

·  Representations had been received from West Yorkshire Police and The Environmental Protection Team, in their capacity as a responsible authority. It was noted that representations may be negotiated prior to the hearing. In this instance the operating schedule had been amended to include the measures agreed with Environmental Health. A copy of the agreement was appended to the report at Appendix D.

·  The operating schedule had also been amended to include the measures agreed with West Yorkshire Police. A copy of this agreement was attached to the report at Appendix E.

·  The application had attracted representations from 5 other persons which opposed the application on the grounds of public nuisance. These included two representations from the three Local Ward Councillors, one from Rawdon Parish Council and two from local residents. Redacted copies of the representations were attached to the report at Appendix F. It was noted that further information had been provided by one of the objectors and circulated as supplementary information prior to the hearing.

·  A list of premises in the local area and their licensed hours and activities was provided at Appendix G of the submitted report.

The Applicant informed the Licensing Sub Committee of the following points:

·  The café had opened just prior to the pandemic. The business had struggled during the pandemic but now had regular customers and had become part of the community.

·  Some of the regular customers had asked whether family events and parties could be hosted at the café and had requested evenings for these events.

·  Mr Pinna said that it was not his intention to open every day and evening only maybe once or twice a week.

·  He said he was requesting a variation to the licence rather than asking for Temporary Event Notices (TEN’s) to give him the flexibility for his business.

·  He informed the Sub Committee that he had previously had a restaurant. However, he had given this up when he had children so that he could have more time with his family.

·  Mr Pinna said that alcohol would only be served with food orders.

·  He advised the Sub Committee, that other businesses in the local area had late licences.

Responding directly to questions from Members Mr Pinna provided the following information:

·  These would be one off events. He did not wish to use TEN’s as he wanted the freedom to have the events when required. He said that there would be a limited number of people at the events with a maximum of 40.

·  Mr Pinna said that he could not control the issue of parking. He was of the view that most customers would be from the local area.

·  He said that the road outside the premises was a busy main road and there was already noise from vehicles.

·  Mr Pinna advised the Members that he would use notices to ask his customers to leave the premises quietly and respect the neighbours.

·  Members noted that should the application be granted Mr Pinna would be installing CCTV and providing an incident register as per the measures put forward by West Yorkshire Police.

·  It was not his intention to sell lots of alcohol, alcohol would only be served with food. He just wanted to run a café / bistro for the community. The extra business would help the business to survive.

Three residents from the local area, along with Cllr Thomson the local ward councillor attended the meeting and provided the Sub Committee with the following information:

·  One of the residents lived next door to the café and when they had purchased the house, they had done so in the knowledge that the café closed at 5pm. If they had known that the café would be opening later, they would not have bought it. The road outside is busy and on occasions he had not had access to his driveway due to people parking in front of his property.

·  He was of the view that it was not possible to police people who had been drinking.

·  He told the Sub Committee that the café was already having an impact on his life, as he can hear noise from the café. The smoking area is close to their property and the volume at which people speak would impact their lives.

·  Another resident had concerns about the concentration of businesses which currently have a late licence on the small parade.

·  The resident quoted the planning application at the time of the permitted development licence for the café. This said that due to the proximity of the residential properties, the premises should only be open until 5pm. It was noted that other premises in the area had restrictions to the outside area until 8pm. It was acknowledged that 2 Sardi had not applied for a late licence for the outside area of the premises.

·  Members were told that some of the properties close by had families with young children.

·  There was concern that once a licence is granted it remains with the premises and should the premises be put up for sale the new owners would be able to open more than once or twice a week.

·  The residents had concerns that if the licence was granted it would have an effect on the value of their property should they wish to sell in the future. They said it was difficult to police human behaviour and they did not want the parade to become like a ‘Magaluf Strip’.

In response to direct questions from the Licensing Sub Committee the Members were provided with the following information:

·  There was no application for the outside area, the variation to the licence was only for the inside area. It was acknowledged that it would be difficult to police customer behaviour when outside, but the applicant explained that as part of the conditions he would have signage requesting that customers should be quiet when leaving the premises and to respect the neighbours.

·  The applicant was of the view that once a week would not be an issue and he wanted the same opportunity to open as other businesses did in the area.

·  It was recognised that the road was busy and there was an issue with parking outside the premises on the parade.

·  Other premises in the area did have restrictions on the outside seating area until 8pm.

·  It was noted that the premises had been put up for sale last year. The applicant explained this was due to him becoming unwell and his partner had taken over the running of the premises during this time. However, he was now better and as the main cook for the premises he had no intention to sell at present.

The Sub Committee asked the applicant for his views on some restrictions they were considering, the applicant said that he would not be happy to have a restriction placed on the number of events he could hold under a late licence. This he said would not give him an equal opportunity to be like other businesses in the area should the late-night events become popular.

The Licensing Sub Committee considered at length all the information provided to them by both the applicant and the objectors.

RESOLVED – To grant the variation to the licence with the following conditions:

1.  Late night events restricted to 50 per year

2.  Use of the outside area restricted to 8pm on evenings when the premises were open for late night events.