Brighton shop granted alcohol licence

A Brighton and Hove City Council licensing panel approved the application for Blakes in Hollingbury Place, known as The Dip, despite objections from a rival business.

But Elite Albion Limited, owner of the neighbouring Mulberry Stores, did not send a representative to the panel hearing on Monday, December 3.

The company raised concerns about ‘the prevention of crime and disorder’ and ‘the protection of children from harm’ in its objection.

But the panel decided that most of what was said was irrelevant to the Blakes application.

Blakes owner Nilesh Vanpariya wanted the licence to start at 7am but the licensing panel pushed this back to 9am.

The council said: “In their collective experience, they (the panel) did not consider that there would be much call for alcohol that early in the morning and were concerned that it might increase the scope for anti-social behaviour in a residential area.

“They were also aware that the existing licence did not permit alcohol sales until 10am.”

A lapsed licence existed for the shop in the name of the previous owners.

When the panel met, Councillors Jackie O’Quinn, Dick Page and Julie Cattell were told how Mr Vanpariya had eight years’ experience training shop workers on licensing rules.

Conditions placed on the Blakes licence are for alcoholic drinks to take up no more than 20 per cent of the shop area and for no drinks to be delivered between 11pm and 7am.

The shop can sell alcohol from 9am to 11pm daily and on New Year’s Eve until 1am on New Year’s Day.