Agenda item
Night Time Economy visits and Enforcement Update
Minutes:
Mr Tom Lewis, Team Leader – Licensing, introduced the report which detailed the review for the late-night inspections to licensed premises undertaken by the Environmental Health and Trading Standards Service. It was noted that the operation was run fortnightly on Friday and Saturday evenings between the hours of either 21:00 and 02:00 hours or 22:00 and 03:00 hours depending on service need.
These late night visits investigated a variety of alleged issues relating to licensed premises, such as:- · Premises undertaking licensable activities without a licence. · Premises alleged to be breaching with conditions and restrictions detailed in their licence. · Licensed premises that have failed to pay the annual licence fee and/or late night levy charge and have had their licence suspended yet have been identified as continuing to carrying out licensable activities. · Premises alleged to undermining the one or more of the licensing objectives.
It was also noted that whilst the Coronavirus Business Restrictions were in place these operations were used to check business compliance with these restrictions too. It was important to note that due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic these visits were on hold at the beginning of 2020, these late-night visits were suspended during the initial national restrictions (lockdown) period between end of March and end of June 2020. These visits resumed following the restrictions being lifted on 4th July 2020 but ceased again by the end of October due to the November Lockdown coming into force. Visits then did not resume until the Summer of 2021 because of the Tier Restrictions and National Lockdown that began in December 2020 until the start of the Summer 2021. It was confirmed that officers were now back to completing these visits on a fortnightly basis. |
Mr Lewis briefly detailed the enforcement visits undertaken in 2020/21 and April 2021 to date (end of January 2022) and the achievements of these visits. It was explained that where non-compliance was witnessed and a breach of the Licensing Act 2003 is established, appropriate and proportionate action is taken in line with the Council’s Enforcement Policy.
Mr Lewis then referred The Committee to Appendix 5 of the report, which detailed the number of prosecutions and outcomes during 2020/21 as a result of the late-night inspections. It was also noted that as a result of these visits 6 FPNs were served on Licensed Premises. Five for Offences under the All Tiers Coronavirus Business Restrictions and one for offences under the Step 2 Coronavirus Business Restrictions.
In response to questions the following was noted;
- That fines for non-compliance were set by central government and any formal action would require a graduated approach and the type of action would usually depend on such matters as compliance history of the premises, attitude of Licensee, extent and seriousness of the breach.
- Where persistent non-compliance is witnessed and a breach of the Licensing Act 2003 is established, Responsible Authorities can seek to review the premises licence.
The Committee welcomed the report.
The Chair moved and it was RESOLVED;
1. The report be noted.
Supporting documents: