Agenda item - Chair's Communications

3.1      The Chair, Councillor O’Quinn stated that when the last meeting of the Committee had taken place back in March no one could have guessed that life would change so much due to the Coronavirus emergency. The social and economic landscape had changed quite dramatically and it has had a very severe impact on the hospitality sector, much of which came under the Committees remit. The city had been like a ghost city for much of the time since Lockdown began, only recently, with the re-opening of shops had the city started to come to life. When  she had walked through the town centre in mid-April  it had been really noticeable how many cafes, restaurants, pubs and bars there were all shut.

3.2      She had taken a long walk along the seafront, from Brighton to Hove with Councillor Appich, to see what was happening with licensed premises when they first started opening for off-sales. There were definitely some issues to begin with but Councillor Appich and herself could find little to concern them when we went on their walk. Well, few issues that were to do with licensing. Queuing for toilets had left much to be desired in terms of social distancing, but councillor Appich quickly got that remedied by City Clean. The Chair was that she spoke for everyone when I stating that she was delighted that the hospitality sector will be re-opening from July 4^th, following strict guidelines, of course. It would still be difficult, even with a one metre rule in place for the outside, for businesses to operate at any sort of profit but they certainly had the support of the residents of this city who had missed being able to go and have a drink at the pub, a coffee at a café and a meal in a restaurant. It was hoped that there would not be too many job losses in this sector as it provided a very significant percentage of jobs in the city.

3.3      A number of Licensing Hearing Panels had now been held and they have gone well, despite technical difficulties at the outset and large numbers of representations on some panels. She felt that the virtual panels had proved to both accessible and democratic so would like to thank all those involved in working to set up the guidelines and technical systems. Jim Whitelegg had been asked to give us an up-date on what has been happening regarding licensing since March and an interim report will be brought to the committee in November. Jim would also provide us with some detail regarding the guidelines for the for the opening of licensed premises and what recovery might look like.

3.4      RESOLVED – That the content of the Chair’s Communications be noted and received.