Staff at a Leeds chippy are feeling threatened by “angry” and aggressive customers when they close up for the night, a public hearing’s been told. Workers at Crispy Fish and Chips, in the Hyde Park area of the city, feel “vulnerable” when ushering customers out the door at 4am, local councillors heard on Tuesday.
The takeaway went viral last year after a video showing customers dancing to Sean Paul within the premises was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, Leeds Live reported. But the Headingley Lane chippy’s request for permission to trade for an extra hour, until 5am, has been rejected after anti-social behaviour issues at and around the venue were highlighted.
Speaking at the hearing at Civic Hall, Crispy’s representative, Nazar Sadiq said: “The applicant says this hour is very important to us and to our customers. Sometimes when we tell customers we have to close we are vulnerable to being attacked by them. They get angry and say, ‘Why are you closing? Why are you closing your shop to us?'”
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He added: “My client says the additional hour is very important to us, so we can get more money and more customers.”
When asked by councillors why trading for an extra hour would stop customers getting angry, Mr Sadiq said around 50 patrons had backed a petition to support Crispy’s bid to open later. however, no such petition had been submitted to the council ahead of the hearing.
Four local residents had objected to the plan to trade for an extra hour, with all of them citing litter as a massive problem around the venue. Noise and anti-social behaviour in general were also raised.
Asked by councillors, what Crispy was doing to address those issues, Mr Sadiq said: “Regarding the environment, if anything happens outside it’s beyound our responsibility. We can’t tell people in the community they need to do this, or they need to do that. It’s out of our control.”
After an hour’s deliberation, councillors refused to grant the 5am extension, saying that they felt issues with anti-social behaviour and public nuisance would be “exacerbated” if the chippy was allowed to open later.
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