(a)

considered the report from the Director for Community Services;

(b)

considered all written representations;

(c)

heard from the applicant, a representative of Devon & Cornwall Police that –

(i)

since opening on 28 May 2010 there have been a number of violent and public order situations at the premise resulting in Choo Choo’s being designated as a problem premises on 21 June 2010;

(ii)

at 03.37hrs on 19 June 2010 large scale disorder took place which made it necessary for the police to make a formal request of the Manager to close the premise;

(iii)

at 05.18hrs on 15 May 2011 a male was found in the rear corridor of the premise unconscious and lying face down in a corridor flooded with excrement, vomit and toilet tissue. The attending officers were jostled and shown hostility; they were not escorted or shown the way by any member of staff or door supervisor. Prior to this incident there was evidence of people being ejected from the premise showing injuries to their faces and then being readmitted by door staff;

(iv)

erratic management had meant that on several occasions improvements had been made which alleviated the problems identified, unfortunately these improvements never became permanent and the problems of violence and anti social behaviour regularly reappeared;

(v)

shortly after the premise was designated as a problem premise the premise licence was transferred to Daniel Robinson and the DPS was varied to Stefan Williams;

(vi)

a large number of relevant incidents had been recorded since the premise was designated as a problem premise on 21 June 2010.  This included noise nuisance, assaults, ABH, GBH (without intent), wounding, racially aggravated GBH, racially aggravated public order, affray, alleged assaults by door staff, breach of a drinking banning order, access to the premises by a 15 and 17 year old;

(vii)

the police requested that the DPS (Stefan Williams) be removed, the hours for the retail sale of alcohol be reduced and conditions be added to the licence to deal with the poor door supervision, the poor CCTV images, the positioning of cameras and the quality of images to cover the corridors and fire exits, the fitting of appropriate alarm systems to fire exits and the maintenance of lights and drains in the corridor leading to the fire exit;

(viii)

the more serious crimes occured from 2.45am to closing with the vast majority between 4.30am to closing;

(ix)

persons ejected were allowed to re-enter by the door staff and information was not being passed to the police;

(x)

DVD footage was shown of four periods of time on 21 May 2011 to the outside of the premises.  DVD footage was also shown of the inside of the premises;

(xi)

since this application there had been mediation talks regarding control including the outside area.  This had resulted in improvements and a reduction of incidents;

(xii)

13 conditions were recommended by the police and conditions 1 to 12 had been agreed by the premises  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4