The owners of a city centre restaurant aiming to open up and offer karaoke until 5am have been granted a premises licence despite coming in for fierce criticism.
Miss Pho on Renshaw Street has been awarded a licence to trade alcohol and stage live music despite being branded a bad neighbour and accused of ignoring concerns, by the chair of Liverpool Council licensing and gambling sub-committee. The Vietnamese venue had sought an alcohol licence seeking to trade until 3am.
The request, submitted by Trong Quy Nguyen, also sought to play live music at the Vietnamese venue until 5am. This was rejected amid a series of complaints raised by neighbours ahead and during the meeting.
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It emerged that bosses at Miss Pho had also claimed to dissenting neighbours that they already had the relevant licences to play music after hours despite not possessing such documentation. Addressing the committee through an associate, Trong Quy Nguyen said the business would be primarily food-based.
He said adding karaoke would be for “entertainment” and admitted noise would impact properties above and around the business. In a bid to mitigate this, the manager said he had sought to bring in an expert in noise to sort this.
The meeting was told that the operators of Miss Pho, which opened in April, had previously run a nail and beauty shop and they admitted they had “a lot to learn.” Luke McAdam, who lives above the venue, told councillors that noise from the restaurant had been “very, very disruptive to my life” and it was “depressing to have conversations for the music to be turned down and it doesn’t happen.”
Richard Edgerton, a resident of nearby Benson Court, said the behaviour of those involved with Miss Pho gave him “no faith things would be managed or controlled.” Cllr Christine Banks, chair of the committee told Mr Trong: “Let’s not sugarcoat it, there’s no getting around it, you’ve ignored them.”
He replied: “We do apologise, we are new, we caused a problem, that’s why we’re here.” Cllr Banks said the business had failed to show it was being a good neighbour.
Despite this, a licence was awarded to Miss Pho with a number of caveats. Cllr Banks said the case had been considered “very carefully” and the licence would be subject to a noise limiter being placed in the venue.
Rather than operating live or recorded music until 5am, the committee curbed the karaoke and music to 11pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Alcohol can be served until 11pm daily with a terminal hour of 12.30am at weekends.
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