Chris Orr comments on… the Licensing Act, again!

Last week I incited everyone to make best use of the local authorities new powers under the licensing act to reduce the level of discounting in supermarkets. Oh what a difference a week makes.

Wednesday 28 September, 2005

Last week I incited everyone to make best use of the local authorities new powers under the licensing act to reduce the level of discounting in supermarkets. Oh what a difference a week makes. Today, I am frankly happy to say don’t bother, because if Brighton and Hove council are anything to go by, you’ll be wasting your breath.

This week several of my neighbours, along with ourselves, lodged an objection to extended licensing hours at the pub at the top of our road. I actually agree to extended hours – but not everywhere. There’s a big difference between a pub that’s in the heart of a throbbing city centre and one tucked in the middle of a row of terraced houses.

In our case the objections was simple. It’s a primarily residential area – so further hours would increase the disturbance for those living in the area, many of whom have young families. It has hardly any customers (perhaps due to the fact that it probably hasn’t been decorated since the early sixties) so any late licence would be for the purpose of attracting non-residents, which again would increase disturbingly. More importantly, there had been several incidents outside the pub lately, including a stabbing, that we felt more than satisfied the ability of the authority’s licensing board to refuse on the grounds of public safety and the police’s desire to prevent public disorder.

I couldn’t make the hearing, but my neighbour did and spoke for all the residents together. There were 15 other applications in all from a variety of pubs and clubs for extensions. Two were from pubs within four streets either side of us – again, all in purely residential areas. By the time our objection was heard, five other licences had been approved, despite similar objections. In one case, 15 locals excercised their right to be heard individually, extending proceedings considerably. Their wishes were still ignored.

The landlord of the pub at the top of our road, claimed there had been no incidents in his pub – despite the fact that a few weeks ago, yellow police tape had been in full view after the stabbing. Of course, if a member of the police had been there, or if they had made an objection themselves – as they are entitled to do – then perhaps the landlord would not have felt so confident in being able to leave out essential information of his application.
And that was the most disturbing thing – the lack of any involvement of the police.

My feeling is that the police, with the onslaught of the new licensing act and the paperwork involved, simply don’t have the ability to work through every licence, let alone object – or if they do, then it’s certainly not being done thoroughly. That’s why the council granted all 15 extensions in Brighton and Hove the other day – and that was simply one day in the busy hectic schedule of the local authority’s licensing committee.

At the beginning of last week Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, claimed in London’s Evening Standard that the mass of objections to extended licences (17,000 to date) was proof that the act was working because people were exercising that right. The critics rounded on her as being out of touch. By last Friday she may well have been appraised of the kind of experience my neighbour and ourselves had at the hands of a local authority. Jowell, along with Licensing minister James Purnell spelt out in a letter to local authorities, sent at the end of last week, that there is “no presumption that requests for longer hours should take precedence over legitimate residents concerns,” and urged local authorities to “stand up for the interests of their electorate.”  Too late for us and certainly too late for the police – who sadly are the ones that will come in for flak from residents like us, who when things go wrong at the end of the street at 2.00am in the morning, won’t be calling the local authority, but will be dialling 999 and demanding a police precence. Now that can’t be good for anybody.