The Isle of Wight council’s Licensing Sub-Committee will be considering a licence review for the Wight Rock Bar next week (9th July at 10am).
Local residents, Mr and Mrs Carr, have asked for the licence to be reviewed for the bar and music venue on the corner of Lind Street and St Thomas Street, Ryde.
The grounds for the review are “disturbances from music, and the alleged breach of a one hour fire safety barrier”.
Owners appealed council decision
Owners of the Wight Rock Bar, Shaun and Deborah Newnham, were first awarded a public entertainment licence in February 2005, which was converted to a premises licence in July 2005.
The application for review of the premises licence was first heard by the Regulatory Committee on 21 February 2013.
The decision made by the committee was appealed by Mr and Mrs Newnham to IW Magistrates Court. They claimed that submissions made by the complainant contained a number of errors, exaggerations and factually incorrect statements which they felt were not sufficiently investigated by Environmental Health.
Ambiguity of the conditions
Magistrates referred the case back to the Licensing Committee due the “apparent ambiguity of the conditions”.
Environmental Health had previously stated that sound needs to be ‘barely audible’ from neighbouring or adjourning properties, but had then changed it to ‘inaudible’.
Having read through the extensive paperwork (174 pages – embedded below for your convenience) Mr and Mrs Carr believe the reason for the excessive nuisance is that that music travels up a shaft that runs between the two properties, which has, they claim, inadequate soundproofing.
Recommendations
It is recommended that the Committee modify the conditions of the premises licence as recommended by Environmental Health’s original representation (Appendix C) and supported by the Licensing Authority as follows:
During the provision of live and/or recorded music the noise, including any DJ announcements shall be contained within the premises, or be at a limit which will be inaudible within the
neighbouring or adjoining residential premises.A copy of all public nuisance complaints received shall be recorded in a log book containing the time of the complaint, date of the complaint, the complainant’s name and address (where provided) along with the action taken by the licence holder to deal with the complaint including the date and time of actions completed. The log book shall at all times be available for inspection by an authorised officer of the licensing authority and in any event within 24 hours of a request.
Image: Steakpinball under CC BY 2.0
