The owner of a Swansea café-bar who has applied for a licence to serve alcohol said his target market was "mature people" and not excessive drinking. Ioannis Benekis runs The Storyteller in Princess Wa, with his business partner Aaryn Whitelock and the duo told a Swansea Council licensing sub-committee that they were aiming for a safe and welcoming environment.
The premises licence application seeks to serve alcohol from midday to midnight on Monday to Thursday and midday to 1am on Friday and Saturday with the venue open from 8am to 12.30am Monday to Thursday and 8am to 1.30am on Friday and Saturday. "We want to provide an environment which is pleasant for everyone," said Mr Benekis. "We want to attract families into the city centre in an area which appears to be quite deprived."
He added: "We don't want to be a party venue. We deviate from most of the hospitality venues mainly on Wind Street. We want to target more mature people who want to go out and enjoy a night out. We don't want to be a venue where it will promote excessive drinking. This is not what we perceive as hospitality."
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The café-bar operates during the day and plans to host storytelling afternoons for parents and children. Mr Benekis said he wanted to work with charities and community and arts groups and be part of city business group Swansea Bid. He said he and Mr Whitelock had witnessed late-night drinkers urinating in Princess Way while they were working on The Storyteller before it opened and felt their venue would act as a deterrent – especially if a pavement café licence application they will submit shortly is successful.
Mr Benekis said there was a lot of investment in High Street and The Kingsway at the moment. "We are in the middle of that junction and we believe our contribution is significant," he said.
There were no objections from South Wales Police or licensing officers but a woman living close by raised concerns about noise and disturbance from The Storyteller on a Friday evening in February when it opened under a temporary licence. The objector said there was no control of customers on the night in question, that glasses were taken outside, and that she could hear every word spoken and song sung from inside her flat.
Her email to the licensing department said: "There was loud shrieking and screaming all evening, from both inside the venue, and on the pavement outside." It added: "This is a new venue and although a certain amount of noise it to be expected in a city centre property it should not be to the extent that it causes residents a noise disturbance."
The objector, who responded to additional information provided by the applicants, couldn't attend the meeting due to work. Mr Benekis acknowledged that it was noisy outside on the February evening in question because at some point the doors were left open and there weren't any security staff.
He said security staff would be deployed on Friday and Saturday evenings, that the doors would not be left open, and that there would be signs asking customers to respect neighbours when they left the premises. He added that live music wouldn't be a daily or even weekly occurrence. "We want to improve the area and work with the local community," he said.
Referring to the application sub-committee chairwoman Cllr Penny Matthews said she was concerned that bottles could be emptied outside by staff up to 11pm. She suggested 9pm, which Mr Benekis agreed to. "That is absolutely fine," he said. "We do have storage capacity inside the building and will just empty during the daytime." Licensed premises within a couple of hundred metres of The Storyteller include Zinco Lounge, The Dragon Hotel, and The Hanbury.
Mr Whitelock said he would have liked to have had a welcoming venue like The Storyteller around when he was growing up in Swansea. "I just feel more of that in Swansea would make Swansea a better place," he said. The sub-committee retired to consider its decision and will let the applicants know within five days.
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