The Council’s Northampton Area Licensing Subcommittee considered the application at a meeting on Thursday April 29th and will take its decision within five working days.
A decision on whether to license a Northampton bar to serve alcohol on a rooftop is currently being discussed by city councils after a licensing meeting.
The application for Jimmy’s Sports Bar on Harlestone Road seeks to change the license for the premises by granting a license to sell alcohol for consumption on the rooftop premises.
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The i newsletter Cut through the noise
A report to the committee stated that the proposed amendment would remove the license for the sale of alcohol for consumption (on the premises) at the rooftop bar from Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. 1 a.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 10.30 p.m.
It states: “At this stage, due to the nature of the objections received, it should be mentioned that by licensing the roof terrace bar for the sale of alcohol, a certain deregulation of the licensing law of 2003 would allow live and music recordings to be played on the roof terrace bar at all times to which the bar was open for the sale of alcohol.
However, this deregulation is limited to the time between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. and for an audience of fewer than 500 people. This is clearly relevant to the licensing objective of preventing public harassment, to which all objections received relate. ‘
Attorney Tim Vaughan stated on behalf of complainant Harry Barnes that Mr Barnes had received a report from Mike Randall, a noise and noise expert.
Mr Vaughan said, “If I could speak to the committee about the main focus of the objection, which is excessive noise.
“What we are saying is that any risk is manageable by the terms. After you have had the opportunity to read both Mr Randall’s first report and his updating report, as you can see, he has confirmed his recommendations regarding of the screening have been fully implemented.
“I hope the photos show a lot. These are high walls that have a significant impact on the decibel readings on the road behind and nearby.”
Mr. Vaughan then said that the following two conditions set out in the report were acceptable.
“Warning notices must be posted in every area where people smoke, asking guests to respect the needs of local residents and to use the area calmly.
“A direct telephone number for the manager / designated operations manager on the premises must be publicly available at all times. This telephone number must be made available to residents and companies in the vicinity.
“The two obviously important conditions that you may want to consider are the ones that Mr Randall pointed out in his report. If I can read it, the next two steps in the recommended harm reduction can now be implemented.
“First, the music system speakers can be placed in positions on the rooftop side of the screen, typically 1.5 meters below the top level of the screen. This was a problem he had on his first inspection, and neither were the screens high enough.
“If the speakers are relocated and the rooftop is not in use, a sound-limiting device attached to the music system can be set to a fixed operating limit, which is confirmed by NBC’s environmental health, so that the sound system can provide background music to customers without the rooftop Impairment of the nearby residential areas.
“We suggest that two noise measurement locations on the corner of Althorp Road and Orchard Street be used as listening positions when adjusting the music system’s noise limiter.”
Mr Vaughan said that Mr Randall had taken test measurements at each of these corners and was convinced that the noise reduction caused by these conditions was quite satisfactory.
Ms. Pamela Williams, who represents the residents, said, “I don’t think residents have any objection to not having music, but it takes a lot of time because you know we go to bed here at certain times. We are not all.” until 11 or one o’clock at night.
“We’re not trying to kill this business because we’re used to this business. This bar has been around for many, many years. We’re used to people coming out late at night. We accepted that, we lived with this one Round here because it’s been done for many years.
“We’re really not trying to close this business down, but in fairness I don’t know if any of you had a bad neighbor, but it’s so noisy that you can’t go to bed and sleep at night.
“And that’s what we’re scared of. We hope Mr. Barnes is listening to us and it sounds like he’s trying, I’ll blame him.”