Agenda item

In accordance with Section 51 of the Licensing Act 2003, the Council has received an application from Kent Police, as a responsible authority, for a review of the existing premises licence in respect of Chatham Grill, 12 Batchelor Street, Chatham, Kent ME4 4BJ.

All responsible authorities have been consulted in line with the Licensing Act 2003. A representation supporting the review has been received from the Kent Fire and Rescue Service.  No further representations supporting the review have been received from members of the public or other responsible authorities.

Discussion:

The Chairman asked those present to introduce themselves and explained the process that the hearing would follow as outlined in the agenda.

The Principal Licensing and Enforcement Officer  stated that an application to review the premises licence in respect of Chatham Grill, 12 Batchelor Street, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4BJ had been received from Kent Police as a responsible authority.

The following documents were included in the agenda for the Panel’s consideration:

•           Appendix A - pages 9 and 10 - A copy of the current premises licence.

•           Appendix B – page 11– Plan showing the location of the premises.

•          Appendix C - page 13 to 18 – Redacted copy of the review application from Kent Police.

•          Appendix D – pages 19 to 24 – A copy of the supporting representation received from Kent Fire and Rescue Service.

•              Exempt Appendix – pages 27 to 33 – A copy of the full version of review application from Kent Police.

The Principal Licensing and Enforcement Officer directed the Panel’s attention to the steps that it may consider necessary, as set out in the agenda, to promote the licensing objectives of the Licensing Act 2003, having regard to the review application and the relevant representations received.

The Chairman invited the representatives from Kent Police to present the application for a licence review.  With reference to CCTV footage from the premises, the representatives outlined the sequence of events that had occurred at Chatham Grill during the violent disturbance at 21.45 hours on Sunday 17 September 2017.

It was explained that, as a result of this incident, Kent Police were of the view that the venue was failing to promote the licensing objectives of public safety and the prevention of crime and disorder. For this reason, Kent Police were seeking the revocation of the premises licence.  However, should this not be considered by the Panel as the most appropriate option for upholding the licensing objectives, Kent Police sought that the following additional conditions be added to the premises licence:

1.    When the premises is open between 21:00 hrs and closing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday  a minimum of 1 door supervisor(s) must be present at the customer entrance/exit of the premises.

2.    CCTV will be provided in the form of a recordable system, capable of providing pictures of evidential quality in all lighting conditions.

•      Equipment must be maintained in good working order, be correctly time and date stamped, recordings MUST be kept on the hard drive and kept for a period of 30 days and handed to Police upon reasonable request. 

•     The premises licence holder must ensure at all times an appointed member of staff is capable and competent at downloading CCTV footage in a recordable format to the Police and Local Authority upon reasonable request. 

•     The recording equipment and hard drive shall be kept in a secure environment under the control of the PLH or other responsible named individual.

•     In the event of technical failure of the CCTV equipment the premises licence holder must report the failure to the Police Licensing Officer within 24 hours unless the CCTV will be repaired before that time (licensing.north.division@kent.pnn.police.uk).

3.    All staff working at the premises to have received training in Conflict Management in order to:

•     Identify the key components present in all angry confrontations.

•     Recognise different stages of conflict escalation.

•     Recognise the signs of conflict and aggression.

•     Maintain composure when responding to conflict and aggression.

•     Use skills to manage their words, phrases and body language.

•     Demonstrate skills to stay calm and manage angry customer behaviour.   

Following questioning of the representatives of Kent Police, the Chairman invited the representative of  the Premises Licence Holder to respond to the review application.  He advised how the additional conditions requested by Kent Police would be met and confirmed that the measures requested by Kent Fire and Rescue Services had been complied with, providing evidence of this. 

Following questioning of the representative of the Premises Licence Holder, both parties were invited to sum up after which the representatives of Kent Police and of the premises, and the Principal Licensing and Enforcement Officer, left the room during the Panel’s deliberations and returned before the Chairman announced the Panel’s decision.

Decision:

a)    In reviewing the current premises licence, the Panel considered the oral, written and visual evidence presented at the hearing and had regard to both Medway Council’s current Licensing Policy and the Statutory Guidance. In view of the seriousness of the incident on 17 September 2017, the Panel considered the revocation of the licence, but decided that the licensing objectives of the prevention of crime and disorder and public safety would be met by the placing of the additional conditions requested by Kent Police, as set out above and amended by b) below, on the premises licence for Chatham Grill, 12 Batchelor Street, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4BJ.

b)    With regard to additional condition 3 requested by Kent Police, the Panel determined that all staff working at the premises must receive training in Conflict Management by the end of February 2018.