(a)

considered the report from the Director of Public Health;

(b)

heard representations from the Police under the licensing objective of Prevention of Crime and Disorder as follows -

?

a serious crime took place on 2 July 2017; a man died following a verbal disagreement inside the premises and a subsequent assault took place in the porch of the premises;

?

indications were that the man died as a result of the assault;

?

since the expedited review held on 4 July 2017 the offender had been charged with manslaughter;

?

further investigations had highlighted breaches of the premises licence and a lack of adequate management of the premises and the conditions attached to the Premises Licence;

?

due to the low number of previous incidents the Police believed the best approach would be to update the Premises Licence;

?

the proposed new conditions which had been agreed by the Premises Licence Holder at a meeting on 24 July 2017 were intended to replace the ambiguous conditions on the current licence with conditions that were unequivocal, and ensured that the licensing objectives were complied with;

?

imposing these conditions minimised the reoccurrence of further incidents relating to serious crime due to the lack of management control of the premises;

?

had put the Premises Licence Holder in touch with the representative from Best Bar None to help with training;

?

that since the meeting to agree the new conditions the Premises Licence Holder had been operating to the said proposed conditions;

?

see attached list of conditions (annexed to these minutes as Appendix 1);

(c)

Members took into consideration these representations which were considered relevant to the licensing objective of the Prevention of Crime and Disorder;

(d)

heard representations from Environmental Health under the licensing objective of Public Nuisance as follows -

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the current Premises Licence Holder took over the running of the premises on 13 January 2017;

?

on 6 February 2017, Environmental Health received its first complaint of music noise from the premises and noise from patrons drinking outside the premises and being intimidating;

?

details of the noise complaints were provided along with details of the contact that Environmental Health had with the Premises Licence Holder to try and resolve the issues;

?

a noise abatement notice was served on the premises on 24 February 2017 however, Environmental Health continued to receive complaints about the noise from local residents;

?

officers visited the complainant’s house and witnessed noise from music and from patrons outside the premises which would have disturbed anyone trying to sleep in the bedroom; the officers on this occasion spoke to the Manager, Mr Wills who they reported to be argumentative when asked to control the noise of the music and his patrons;

?

that the premises adjoined the residential property and that it would not be structurally possible to fit sound proofing and as such fitting a noise limiter would not be effective in controlling noise and would not control live music;

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in light of the ongoing complaints that had been received and despite an abatement notice having been served, Environmental Health was of the view that the Premises Licence Holder was either unable or unwilling to control the noise levels and therefore recommended that regulated entertainment was removed from the licence in accordance with Section 177A(4) of the Licensing Act 2003;

(e)

Members considered that the representations by the Environmental Health officer were relevant under the licensing objective of Prevention of Public Nuisance and that they showed that there had been a lack of engagement with the authorities and the residents;

(f)

based upon what the Committee had heard it was clear that there was an issue with control of noise which was beyond the control of the Premises Licence Holder that the removal of the juke box was the only way forward to control the noise so agreed to exclude the licensable activity and considered it appropriate to include a condition to say -

‘no live or recorded music may take place on the premises and the exemption provisions within Section 177A of the Licensing Act 2003, relating to live and recorded music no longer apply to this Premises Licence’:

(g)

heard representations from the Interested Party under the licensing objective of Public Nuisance as follows -

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prior to the current Premises Licence Holder taking over the premises had been a thriving restaurant and during that time there had been no disturbances from noise or ant-social behaviour;

?

on numerous occasions in the last seven months it had been necessary for this resident to raise issues with the Police and Environmental Health; the issues reportedly included fights, vandalism to the pub, noise, patrons throwing rubbish, cigarette butts and vomiting in their garden;

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the residents had found that whilst the Premises Licence Holder and his staff were polite to start with when asked to control the volume of their music, as time had gone on the attitude from the staff had become more and more irritated and they had suffered from intimidation and verbal abuse from patrons and they no longer felt it was safe to enter the pub;

?

the noise levels from the premises meant that they were unable to open the windows in their property which had made sleeping conditions in the hot weather very uncomfortable; the noise levels from the premises had meant that their children were frequently unable to get to sleep or were woken up in the early hours of the morning; this had had an adverse effect on their sleep patterns and education;

?

the written representation contained a detailed diary; in summary the problems outlined were -

o    

noise from live and recorded music within the premises that could be heard in their house; this could range from the songs being loud enough to be identified to thumping base beats; despite requests to staff to turn the music down, noise could still be heard; when the music was turned down then the volume gradually increased again and remained a problem;

o    

patrons congregated outside the premises and were noisy (in some cases in large groups); in addition noise was created by people shouting and being drunk when they left the premises;

o    

when complaining about noise the resident had suffered verbal abuse from patrons and had felt that they atmosphere was intimidating;

o    

the pub was on the cusp of a home zone where peaceful enjoyment would be expected;

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Members considered that the representations by the Interested Party were relevant under the licensing objective of Prevention of Public Nuisance and that they showed that there had been a lack of engagement with the authorities and the residents;

(h)

heard representations from the Premises Licence Holder as follows -

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he worked with the Police and agreed new conditions for the control of the premises;

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had contacted the Best Bar None contact as requested;

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had taken action to stop patrons congregating at the front of the premises;

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had implemented the new smoking area to the side of the premises away from residential properties;

?

had installed the CCTV as required in the new conditions agreed with the Police;

?

had considered fitting sound proofing between the properties but that this would not be effective;

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considered that the neighbour would not accept any pub in the area regardless of what he did;

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the windows were closed at all times and believed the removal of the juke box would be the only way to solve the noise from the music problem;

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no longer held live music entertainment at the premises;

(i)

after considering all of the representations, Committee Members were concerned to see that sufficient controls were in place to control the Prevention of Crime and Disorder following the incident which prompted the review that took place on 4 July 2017;

(j)

in addition the Committee had heard relevant representations about noise from music and patrons congregating outside the premises since the Premises Licence Holder took over the licence in January 2017;

(k)

the Committee had noted that the Premises Licence Holder was now working with the Police and had agreed conditions which addressed the Police’s original and ongoing concerns about the management of the premises;

(l)

the Committee considered that the structure of the premises would not allow for satisfactory steps to be taken to provide adequate sound proofing so considered it appropriate to remove the licensable activity related to regulated entertainment of live and recorded music.