Agenda and minutes

Councillor Tony Owen was appointed as Chairman for the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

Decision:

A. That the following be added at the end of the existing licence condition 14:

“These records must include external certification and / or minutes summarising the in-house training which has been undertaken. If the training is in-house, then the minutes must be signed by every person taking part in the training.”

B. That additional conditions be imposed on the licence, namely:

1. The Premises Licence Holder shall maintain a list of names in the shop which identifies the staff permitted to sell alcohol. In addition, a written staff rota will be kept at the premises. These records shall be made available immediately to Police or Council Officers on request.

2. The refusal register shall be inspected and countersigned by the DPS on a weekly basis, the DPS confirming that they have checked the register. Refusal register records shall be held for a minimum of 12 months.

3. Signage of the “challenge 25” policy shall be prominently displayed throughout the sales area of the premises.

The Review:

The Licensing Sub-Committee have carefully considered the application made by Rob Vale of behalf of Trading Standards at London Borough of Bromley to review the premises licence of The Wine Shop.

The application for review arose out of a test purchase on 14th March 2017 when an employee at the premises sold alcohol to a volunteer under the age of 18, having failed to ask her for identification to prove that she was 18 years of age or over.

The review hearing was initially convened on 25th May 2017, when it heard evidence from Ms Ruth Hancock, Lead Trading Standards Practitioner at the London Borough of Bromley, and from Mr Nick Singh, the owner of the business. The DPS, Mr Rajeshkumar Ramaswamy, was unable to attend that hearing and Mr Singh had not brought the refusals log or records of training with him to that hearing. It was therefore adjourned for these records to be produced and for Mr Ramaswamy to attend.

Mr Ramaswamy and Mr Singh both attended the second hearing on 28th June.

Facts arising out of the hearing:

Considerable discussion took place at both hearings in relation to the way in which the business was run. A page was produced at the second hearing, which listed the dates of training which had taken place over recent months but no details were provided on that record as to the content of that training. Mr Singh stated that he had undertaken the online training suggested by the sub-committee at the first hearing, but he had not printed off the certificate to confirm this.

A refusals log dating from February 2017 was produced at the second hearing. The sub-committee was told that this was the current log and that previous refusal logs and training records had not been taken to the hearings.

Mr Ramaswamy stated that there were always 2 members of staff present in the shop after 7pm, in accordance with condition 18 of the licence. It was put to him  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.