Meeting documents

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no declarations of interests.

The Chairman introduced the parties and explained the procedure to be followed. The Hearing Regulations 2005 stated that the Authority must allow parties an equal period of time in which to present their evidence. It was agreed that the maximum time for each presentation be ten minutes.

The Licensing Enforcement Officer presented the report and highlighted background information and the grounds for the review.

There were no questions for the Licensing Enfocement Officer.

Sergeant O'Brien then presented the application as detailed within the report. In response to a question from a Member, Sergeant O'Brien explained that the police would like to introduce identification labels on all alcohol within the store and after discussion with HKS retail Limited, it has been agreed that this will be explored outside of the hearing.

The license holders representative, Mr Botkai, addressed the meeting. He explained that he beleived that the test purchases were carried out fairly and that although the members of staff that sold the alcohol had been recently trained, they had let the company down and as a consequence been disciplined. It was explained that HKS Retail Limited had taken this very seriously and that all staff had been tr-trained and the training procedure has been reviewed.

Mr Botkai stated that since 2 May, the store had voluntarily stopped the sale of alcohol due to the need for further training. The current Designated Premises Supervisor would be taking the BllAB Level 2 National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisor on 15 May and there would be no alcohol sold in the store until the course had been passed.

Mr Botkai agreed with what the police had stated with regards to the discussion of ID labels on alcohol outside of the hearing.

In response to questions from members, Mr Botkai stated the following:

- The currently policy was to provide refresher training for staff quarterly but due to the incidents that had occured it was being reviewed.

- Mr Botkai had questioned the fairness of test purchases in the past but in his opinion this particular test purchase had been a fair one.

- It was difficult to ensure that adults were not purchasing alcohol and passing on to children outside of the store. The key was to be vigilant of what is happening outside of the store but once the alcohol had left the store it was impossble to take any action.

The Area Manager for HKS Retail Limited stated the following in response to questions from Members:

- The refusal book in place at the store requires all refusals to be logged with the details such as time, date, age and description. If there has not been a refusal in a day that information is also logged. Each day the book is signed by the manager and then checked by area managers during visits.

- Patterns in refusals are looked at and the book can be inspected by the police if requested.

- During the time of the test purchases, the prompts for proof of age on the tills were in place.

Mr Botkai gave a brief closing speech. Sergeant O'Brien declined the opportunity to give a closing speech.

At 7.10pm the Sub Committee adjourned to consider its decision and re-convened at 7.50pm.