Saturday, 28 July 2012

Halleluliah!

Here are the summary paragraphs of the LLA decision on 25 July 2012:
Authority's Decision and Reasons
[28] This application relates to problem premises. Their nature and their proximity to a residential neighbourhood pose real difficulties for any applicant attempting to establish its suitability for an on-licence. The Authority appreciates that it cannot consider matters more properly the province of the Christchurch City Council under the Resource Management Act 1991. Whilst Sergeant Lawn stated that the premises were unsuitable for a night club, that is not the issue for this Authority.

[29] The issue for this Authority is whether or not the applicant is suitable to operate the premises as a night club. For the reasons expressed earlier in this decision, this applicant is well away from establishing its suitability for an on-licence in respect of these premises.

[30] The application is refused.
Well done, everyone.

Saturday, 14 July 2012

Our Day In Court

Thankyou all who turned up to yesterday's District Licensing Authority court hearing. This was supposed to be a 10 till noon affair but, because of the large number of objections, it became an all day marathon, which forced postponement of the afternoon hearing that was scheduled to follow ours. Even with the extra afternoon session, in the interests of time those of us that were expecting to read our submissions publicly were asked to let the court take them as read, and most of us felt happy to do this.

It was also wonderful to see community support from organisations such as the Police and the Shirley-Papanui Community Board, adding their considerable weight to our objections.

Despite the rescheduling required, I am sure that Judge Hole was gratified to see so many of us turn up. (So few of us turned up last time he felt obliged to comment on our poor turnout at the time of the hearing.) A credit to Margaret and her many assistants!

The applicants, Olivia Boote, Gary (Olivia's father), John (Olivia's uncle) and their new bar manager (Robert Thompson-Brown) seemed somewhat disorganised and not convincingly able to deflect criticism that Club 22's operation was causing increased crime in the area. However, I'm obviously biased, so fingers crossed for a decision to decline the application.

I'll publish the outcome here when it appears in a few weeks time.