Notts bar Brass Monkey allowed to extend opening hours until 5am despite police objection

A Nottingham cocktail bar will be allowed expand its opening hours, staying open for later after Notts Police withdrew a condition saying it should employ seven door staff.

Brass Monkey sought permission from Nottingham City Council’s licensing panel to extend its opening hours as well as extend their licensable area to another floor.

Under the new licensing rules, last entry would be 4am, while the bar would be able to serve alcohol until 4:30am as long as it closed by 5am.

Nottinghamshire Police, feared that the changes would mean that the bar would become a “night-club” and requested that it employ seven additional door staff as a condition.

During the meeting, the licensing lawyer who represented Brass Monkey, Duncan Craig, had called the police’s condition as an “absurd, preposterous and wholly disproportionate suggestion.”

He said: “This is a venue that is well known, not just in Nottingham but elsewhere, and very well-regarded particularly in the leisure industry and particularly for those people that in it.

“This city, the bars in this city, are a huge asset to this city. They are staffed by generally young people, not necessarily well paid, working unsociable hours, doing a job that they love in an industry they care about and in a city they call home.

“You have here an overwhelming number of representations from people within the city, within this industry, people who work locally, who care about this city, who want somewhere they can go once their shift has finished.”

Mr Craig argued that it would primarily be those working in the hospitality sector and regulars who would attend the bar late at night.

Nottinghamshire Police was represented in the meeting by solicitor Avi Wadhawa.

Ms Wadhawa said: “Since the last hearing, and I think we made this very clear at the last hearing as well, yes it is accepted that the request for so many door staff was perhaps over the top.

“I put it that way and I accept that since the last adjourned hearing a site visit has also been done to assist in understanding the premises, and we accept that those door staff aren’t required.

“Nottinghamshire Police’s position now certainly would be that there should be two door staff and then one per floor is another floor is opened.”

Nottinghamshire Police retained its position over the objection to the opening hours. They argued that there wasn’t a way to police who enter the bar and determine if it was actually those who had finished work in the hospitality sector attend during the late hours.

The licence was granted despite the objection from Nottinghamshire Police. No other objections were received.

Justifying the panel’s decision, the chair of the meeting Cllr Audrey Dinnall (Lab) stated: “The police did not raise any concerns in relation to the management of the application premises, and that the application premises are already licensed to serve alcohol and other regulated entertainment until 3am, and that no specific evidence of noise or other concerns arising from the application premises were presented.”

Feature image via Google Maps 

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