Agenda item

To receive the public minutes and decision notice of the meeting regarding ‘Madison’, One New Change, London EC4M 9AF, held on 24 January 2017.

The Committee received the public minutes and decision notice (tabled) of the meeting regarding ‘Madison’, One New Change, London EC4M 9AF, held on 24 January 2017.

The Chairman, who had also chaired this particular hearing, confirmed that there had been a lot of negotiation between parties prior to the hearing and that a number of agreements had been reached as a result. He informed the Committee that it was very clear that the premises owners/management took the matter very seriously and it was made very clear to all who attended the hearing that the City of London Police and Licensing Team would be monitoring the premises very closely to look for evidence of significant improvements going forward. It was noted that the premises had not encountered any issues over the busy Christmas period.

A Member, who had also sat on this hearing panel, drew Members’ attention to the fact that the Panel had decided to add Model Condition MC03 (re: keeping an incident log at the premises) to the premises licence. He suggested that this might be good practice for all licensed premises, particularly for those premises operating as ‘chains’ where there was a degree of separation from central management.  The Deputy Chairman highlighted that the Code of Best Practice highlighted a number of measures that premises might like to have in place voluntarily (including the keeping of an incident log).  The Chairman reminded the Committee that they were only able to impose conditions considered to be both necessary and appropriate on a licence. 

A Member expressed concern at the large catalogue of serious incidents that had taken place at the venue and questioned why it had taken the City of London Police so long to flag these. He questioned whether the Police had been over tolerant in this case. The Deputy Chairman highlighted that the Police needed sufficient time to gather evidence before a review could be requested. They could also only call for a licence review once a year. The City of London Police went on to confirm that they had initially met with the premises management in October 2015 to discuss their concerns. During the 2015/16 festive period some improvements were made and no incidents were reported at the venue. Throughout the course of 2016, the situation deteriorated significantly leading to the Police decision, in July 2016, to begin to gather evidence for a review. It was noted that matters at the venue continued to worsen from July 2016, culminating in perhaps the most serious of the incidents logged on Halloween 2016.

The Deputy Chairman went on to highlight that the crux of the problem with this premises seemed to be around capacity and the outside, terrace area. She flagged that this was also a matter for the Planning and Transportation Committee and asked that, where relevant, they note these points. She stated that she was pleased to see that the venue capacity had now been reduced but expressed concern that premises management had suggested that they were unaware of the issues at this venue prior to the review.

The Chairman informed Members that the landlord of 1 New Change would now also be working with the premises regarding security staff and entry up to the terrace area, it was made abundantly clear to all involved that the premises would be the subject of further review should there be a repeat of any issues.

RECEIVED.