Bid to extend pub's hours is thrown out

6:10pm Wednesday 27th August 2008

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POLICE have successfully fought a busy Tenby pub’s application for longer opening hours after fears of increased drunken and violent behaviour.

Dyfed-Powys Police strongly objected to the Prince of Wales’ application for a new premises licence and drew up a huge dossier of incidents that had happened in and around the pub.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s licensing sub-committee was faced with more than 50 pages of incidents including violent assaults, theft, criminal damage, excess noise and many more.

Earlier this month the committee turned down several temporary event notices by the Prince of Wales, but adjourned its decision on the licence to seek more information.

During a lengthy meeting on Friday, representatives of applicant Mark Thomson countered with claims that many details in the incidents in the police dossier were wrong.

They said many incidents related to other premises in the area, happened when the Prince of Wales was closed or where staff had acted correctly in dealing with drunken customers.

One document claimed that disorder had actually got worse since the pub’s previous hours were reduced to 1am.

But police licensing officer Tony Davies maintained things had improved in the town centre because the current hours for the sale of alcohol were working.

Any change in the hours of sale would create a honey pot, he said, drawing customers seeking late-night booze like bees to honey.

The committee agreed and rejected the application.

A council spokesman confirmed: “The application by the Prince of Wales for a new premises licence was rejected by the licensing sub-committee on grounds that it was not satisfied that the four licensing objectives were met in the application, and in particular in light of representations from Dyfed-Powys Police.”