Yesterday I got the papers through from RBC in connection with the licence review of the Kings Tavern on Kings Road.
This is a serious chapter in the recent troubled history of this venue as the latest application for a review of the licence comes from Superintendent Steve Kirk of Thames Valley Police.
The grounds for the review are set out as follows in the agenda papers:
'Thames Valley Police have serious concerns that firstly, an unauthorised Licensable Activity has been carried out at the premises otherwise than authorised and secondly that ther is an unsuitable Designated Premises Supervisor, resulting in lack of control, therefore, the Premises Licence Holder has undermined the licensing objective of the Prevention of Crime and Disorder.'
In plain English what happened was this: on 6 July 2009 an observer witnessed alcohol being served by the DPS to customers during the period when the pub's licence had been suspended by the Council's licensing committee.
The Police are now calling for the removal of the Designated Premises Licence Holder, Augusta Sama and for the Premises Licence of the Kings Tavern to be revoked.
As ward councillors for the area we had been closely monitoring what has been going on at this venue following the review in May.
We have had serious concerns about the competence of the management at this venue for over a year.
This follows a number of complaints we have received from residents living nearby about noise and anti-social behaviour.
So we are grateful to the Police for pursuing this action and hope it will lead to a better managed venue in future for the benefit of customers and residents.
A panel of Councillors will meet on Friday 27 November to decide what action should be taken.
You can access the agenda and background papers for the review meeting which will be held in the Council Chamber of the Civic Offices (and is open to the public) here.
Options open to councillors range from taking no action, modifying the conditions of the licence to removing the designated premises licence supervisor or revoking the licence.
Unfortuanately due to the vagaries of Labour's Licensing Act 2003 the ability of ward councillors to participate in the licensing process is severely limited so we are reliant of members of the Panel (who represent other wards) doing the right thing.
In the past we have felt that the Council has pulled it's punches when dealing with problems at this venue.
For this reason we hope the councillors on the panel take decisive action on Friday to prevent more serious problems occuring at this venue in the future.
