A shop in Merthyr Tydfil has been granted a licence to sell alcohol despite concerns raised by local residents and councillors. Alma Stores on Alma Street in Dowlais applied for a new premises licence for a convenience store in the area and this was approved after it had gone before the council’s statutory licensing committee on Thursday, April 6.
The applicant applied for a licence to sell alcohol for consumption off the premises only and opening times between 8am and 9pm from Monday to Saturday and from 9am to 9pm on Sunday. The committee report said there had previously been a premises licence in place which was surrendered in April, 2016, the committee report said.
The previous premises licence allowed the sale of alcohol for consumption off the premises only and opening hours between 8am and 11pm from Monday to Saturday, and from 10am to 10.30pm on Sunday and there were said to be no complaints recorded against the premises. South Wales Police raised no objection to the application and an agreement had been reached with the applicant to amend the times for the supply of alcohol off premises and to include certain conditions. The conditions agreed to were around CCTV, an incident log, signs and staff training.
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Residents voice their opposition to the licence
But residents in Alma Street and surrounding streets objected to the application, raising concern that it would potentially increase the rate of crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour. They said: “Granting a licence would provide a further source of alcohol within an area already so heavily populated with licensed premises that crime, disorder and public nuisance have already reached problem levels for the local police in recent years.”
They said residents in this area already suffer noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour at times and “it is totally unacceptable to expect them to endure more levels of this due to this application.” They added: “Parking within the street and surrounding street is already a major issue for residents and having an off licence will not help this matter, just make the issue worse.”
They said several residents of the street were elderly, living alone and/or disabled and required disabled access at all times to be able to leave their homes and that having an off licence would highly likely prevent this due to customers and non-residents parking wherever they felt they could to visit the shop. "In short, residents of this location and surrounding streets deserve to feel safe in their own homes at all times, having an off licence in the vicinity as well as the other already established premises is not the way forward.”
Councillors raise residents’ concerns
Local councillors Declan Sammon, Paula Layton and David Hughes also raised concerns of residents of Alma Street, Broad Street and Overton Street around increased anti-social behaviour, increased traffic, increased noise, an increase in litter as well as issues around parking in the area.
Reasons for granting the licence
The decision notice said that the evidence presented by the interested parties that granting a licence would breach the licensing objectives was “evidence based upon their fears as opposed to empirical evidence.” The committee also felt that the current anti-social behaviour in and around the Alma Street area could not be attributable to this particular premises.
The decision notice said that to refuse the application the committee would have to be sure that the fears would become reality and although the committee recognised the concerns, they did not conclude that granting the licence would cause a conflict with the licensing principles. The committee’s decision notice also said that there was “no direct evidence that those committing the anti-social behaviour obtained the alcohol in the licensed premises in the immediate area.
“There was no evidence on police records of drink-related anti-social behaviour in the vicinity of the premises and there was no report to the Licensing Authority of the licensing principles being breached when the store was last licensed (2003 to 2016).” It added that the committee felt that licensing a further store would not lead to a conflict with the licensing principles and that this store if licensed would not breach this licensing principle if the store adhered to the conditions and refused sales to under 18s or proxy sales.
It was accepted by the committee that the street was narrow and that shoppers at the store would inevitably take residents parking places (albeit temporarily), but this would present itself as an issue even if the store was not licensed for alcohol. It added that if parking in the street was difficult then it was likely that people shopping for alcohol would be more likely to shop at nearby stores where parking problems did not exist.
The decision notice also said it was felt that customers buying alcohol who then went on to commit anti-social behaviour were not likely to attend the store in a car so the committee did not therefore consider licensing the store would breach the public safety licensing principle. The committee noted that there was no opposition to the application from the police, trading standards and public health subject to the police’s conditions, the concerns over lack of parking and traffic congestion did not link them to a public safety issue, merely an inconvenience and nuisance to local residents, and that there was no evidence given of nuisance problems previously linked to the store and the committee heard nothing to suggest that this store, if licensed, would be any different.
“The committee felt that granting a license to sell alcohol from the premises would not negatively impact in terms of nuisance upon those living in the immediate vicinity of the licensed premises and there was no evidence before the committee for them to conclude that licensing this new store would lead to youth anti-social behaviour with concerns raised about sales to under-age customers allayed by the applicant accepting the conditions of the police.”
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