Tuesday 10 February 2009

CONDITIONAL DISCHARGE OVER LATE NIGHT TAKEAWAY

Thanet district Council press release

A Ramsgate man has been given a conditional discharge for 12 months, after pleading guilty to operating a late night takeaway without a licence.

Soner Melin (51) of Trove Court, Ramsgate, pleaded guilty when the case went before Magistrates in Margate on Thursday (5 February) and was also ordered to pay £120 costs to Thanet District Council.

Magistrates were told that all premises which serve hot food or drinks between 11pm and 5am need a premises licence under the 2003 Licensing Act. Premises at 130 High Street, Ramsgate were licensed as Yucas Fast Food in January 2006, but this licence lapsed in February 2008.

In October 2008, the council’s licensing department received complaints from members of the public about takeaway premises operating as Kebab Attack at the same address. A letter was sent to the proprietor about not operating after 11pm and the penalties for doing so were explained. The proprietor contacted the licensing department and the necessary paperwork for making an application was delivered to the premises on 27 October, but no application was made.

Further complaints were received and on Friday 12 December, two council licensing officers went into the shop after 11pm and saw five customers eating food, with more coming into the shop and being seved. Mr. Melin told the officers that he had asked for application forms, but claimed the council had sent the wrong ones. The council confirmed in court that the correct forms were delivered.

Cllr. Roger Latchford, Cabinet Member for Culture and Economy, said: “This should send out a strong warning to anyone who thinks that they can sell hot food or drinks after 11pm at night. The simple fact is that they can’t without a premises licence and to get one, they need to apply to the council.”

2 comments:

  1. Micheal, you appear to have posted the Gateway Plus message (again) under this title.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry Peter I was in the middle of composing a reply to the air accident authority, when the press releases came through and screwed up, I have put it below as it may interest you, as you are involved in the airport debate.

    Thanks for your prompt and courteous reply.

    Two pertinent thoughts, the council meeting that effectively will give the ok to BA moving part of its 747 freight operation to Manston is tomorrow, I believe 747s have a fuel capacity of 15,000 gallons, and don’t think the contingency plan would work for that amount of fuel. It is quite important as the main runway is on top of the middle of our drinking water aquifer, at the moment their contingency plan is to have a digger standing by, in case an air accident causes a spillage on the grass part of the airfield, the plan being to dig out the contaminated soil and dump it on the runway, before it reaches the water supply and permanently damages the aquifer, putting an end to agriculture in this part of the garden of England. I suppose this plan could be a bit difficult if your chaps are trying to conduct an investigation, digging up the evidence as it were.

    Thanet Earth the huge greenhouse operation that is going to supply a large proportion of the UKs tomatoes and cucumbers is being built at the end of the main runway, as it is an agricultural development it didn’t need an environmental impact assessment, so the airport operator wasn’t a statutory consultee.

    Hence large open ponds of water, that the airport operator have objected to so voraciously for another large development near the runway, that presumably will have the wildfowl that disagree so much with jet engines. I am also wondering if the acres of greenhouse roofs have been built to withstand the wingtip vortexes generated by 747s. It’s not the tomatoes and cucumbers that I worry about, as they are being grown hydroponically, and probably wont taste of much, but the people working inside could be a cause for concern.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.