Shop licence bid turned down

A man looking to run a new shop in Spalding has been denied an operating licence.

Bakhtiar Mohamed Amin applied for the premises licence at 13 Winsover Road, which most recently was a Portuguese themed cafe but has since reopened as a shop.

He appeared before South Holland District Council’s Licensing Panel last week, who rejected his application.

It follows Lincolnshire Police objecting to the application being granted.

Their reasons were in a document that was not publicly published and classed as ‘exempt information’.

The decision notice published by the panel and signed by its chairman Coun Jack Tyrrell did say though: “The police had raised doubts as to the suitability of the applicant to hold a Premises Licence or be the Designated Premises Supervisor.

“These doubts relate to a history of encounters with the applicant in which he was not necessarily arrested but seemed to have put forward different variations of his name and date of birth.

“There is a suggestion that the applicant was working when he was disqualified from doing so due to his immigration status and/or locations where illegal working was suspected.

“The police submitted that they would have no confidence in the applicant abiding by stringent conditions given his history.”

The application included wanting to sell alcohol from 8am to midnight every day of the week.

On his application form, Mr Amin said that he would take part in local schemes and that CCTV had already been installed at the premises.

The panel though sided with the police in saying it had ‘no confidence’ in the applicant.

“The panel had no confidence in the answers provided by the applicant as to his previous history and ability to now run an off-licence within an a PSOP area,” the decision states.

“It was of concern that the applicant, via his representative, was suggesting that the applicant would undergo training to become licenced when the applicant already holds a personal licence having passed a course in April 2022.

“The panel determined they would not have confidence that the applicant would fully understand and rigorously implement any conditions put forward and so the only appropriate step to promote the licensing objectives was to reject the application.”