The Committee will appoint a Chair and Vice-Chair for this particular meeting.

The Sub-Committee agreed to appoint Councillor Partridge as Chair, and Councillor Rennie as Vice-Chair for this particular meeting.

Members will be asked to make any declarations of interest in respect of items on this agenda.

There were no Declarations of Interest in relation to items on this agenda.

To receive reports on business which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be brought forward for urgent consideration.

There were no items of Chair’s Urgent Business.

The Director for Public Health will submit a report on the Grant of Premises Licence - One Stop Stores Limited, One Stop, Cargo 2, 41 Milbay Road, Plymouth, PL1 3NG

The Committee having-

1.     Considered the report from the Director of Public Health;

2.     Heard from the applicant and taken into account the following, including the witness statements and exhibits from Sarah Watson, Paul Twydell and Steve Berry:

a.     The company operates over 700 stores across England and Wales;

b.     Stores are primarily convenience stores and not dedicated off licences;

c.     They operate in many deprived areas and have shops near schools and alcohol and drug recovery centres and in those areas, they have never experienced the problems which are perceived in the representations;

d.     They have a Primary Authority partnership with Hertfordshire County Council which has operated for around 10 years and before that they were part of a Home Authority arrangement with Walsall Council. Their age related sales policies, procedures and training had been reviewed by the Primary Authority who had concluded that adequate systems are in place. These procedures were last reviewed in March 2022;

e.     Their age restricted policies, procedures and training include refusal of sale to those intoxicated and underage, refusals log, proxy sales, till prompts, point of sale ‘Think 25’ signage, internal test purchases, store audits and conflict management for staff. All staff have to complete quarterly age restricted product training declaration;

f.       The company is part of the Retail Alcohol Standards group which promotes the responsible sale of alcohol and a number of stores are involved in a Community Alcohol Partnership working with Trading Standards, Police and, in some cases, local schools;

g.     Stores employ local people so they have a knowledge of the area in which they work. Stores also work closely with local police and PCSOs;

h.     In the last 10 years, there have been no reviews of licences for the stores in this area. The only review that has taken place nationally was for a store in the north of country, around 8 years ago, which did retain its licence;

i.       The store will have safeguards to deal with behaviours in the immediate vicinity of shop. There will be internal and external CCTV which staff can monitor. Staff are trained to look out for anti-social behaviour and proxy sales. The conflict management training to staff will assist in moving on any customers who are loitering around the shop. The applicant confirmed that it was happy to agree to a condition requiring them move on people causing congestion or loitering outside the shop;

j.       Staff can also alert a monitoring centre if they are concerned by the behaviour of a person or something that is happening. This is done by pressing button on a console or on a wristband which they wear. There are also systems in place whereby a voice is played over speakers in the store telling a person that they are being watched and asking them to leave the premises;

k.     Whilst litter is not strictly relevant to the application as it does not solely relate the licensable activity applied for, the applicant was happy to install a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

To consider passing a resolution under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 to exclude the press and public from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it (they) involve(s) the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph(s) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended by the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

There were no items of Exempt Business.