"No" to pub's 2am drinking bid

3:09pm Thursday 11th October 2007

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A PUB'S application to serve alcohol until 2am at weekends have been scuppered by councillors who were handed a 44-name petition objecting to the proposal.

The Cheetham Arms, off Blackburn Road, Sharples, was also refused permission to extend its licence until midnight from Sunday to Thursday following the decision by Bolton Council's licensing committee.

Residents, who penned 19 objection letters, complained that later opening would add to problems with noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour outside the pub.

It currently serves alcohol from 11am until 11pm from Monday to Saturday and between noon and 10.30pm on Sunday.

Councillors compromised by allowing the pub to extend its Friday and Saturday licence until midnight and its Sunday licence until 11pm.

The pub will only be able to serve until 2am on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, but it was given the go-ahead to open at 10am every day to serve breakfasts.

It will be able to remain open for half-an-hour drinking up time after it has finished serving but the committee imposed a condition banning outdoor drinking after 9pm.

Councillors were shown letters from residents and one from Bolton North-east MP, David Crausby, who urged the council to take people's concerns on board.

Residents, who were represented at the meeting by local councillor John Walsh, said problems had grown since the smoking ban as more people took drinks outside with them.

One objector, Amanda Every, claimed in her letter that pub customers already urinated on her driveway and that extended hours would attract a "yob culture", with social disorder and litter.

She said: "Opening hours of this sort seven nights a week will send out the message to a particular group that this is a pub to go to when all others are closed and continue the binge drinking."

Committee chairman, Cllr Jim Lord, said after the meeting: "This was a compromise and I think the decision made was acceptable to both the licensee and the objectors.

"We had to take on board both that the licensee has to make a living but also the quality of life for residents."

Licensee, Mark Sefton, said he was disappointed by the decision not to allow a later licence from Mondays to Thursdays.

"Really I only applied for 2am at weekends to give us the option, if we had a party for example, it wouldn't have been used every weekend.

"People are saying there has been vandalism to cars, plants pulled up outside homes on Springfield Road, and wheelie bins thrown around, but it is not necessarily pub customers.

"It has never happened in the 14 weeks I have been here but if there are problems outside the pub I will go and have a word."