Bar’s booze licence revoked

A POPULAR bar in Atherstone has had its alcohol licence revoked after blowing a second chance.

Barcode in Long Street was found to have broken certain conditions which were handed to the owners after a previous police and council review.

The bar was slapped with stricter rules surrounding late night entries, drugs and CCTV - but just over a week after the rules came into force, the bar was found to be breaking them.

Cllr Peter Morson, member of North Warwickshire Borough Council’s licensing committee, said: “I am a bit disappointed and annoyed really, we gave them a second chance and they blew it.

“No one likes to take someone’s livelihood away from them and as pubs are dwindling across the country, it is vital that we protect them, but at the end of the day they broke the rules and we had to act.

“I know they have raised a lot of money in the past, but the licence is the licence and the fact that they broke conditions eight days after we had given them a chance, we had no choice but to revoke it.”

Police asked for a review of the Barcode’s licence and a meeting of the borough council’s licensing sub-committee was held on February 3.

The decision was made that it could keep its licence subject to extra conditions for the premises licence holder and included the need for additional CCTV to be installed, for any drugs found on the premises to be locked in a drugs safe and handed over to the police, that a member of staff should remain on the door at all times and no-one should be allowed into Barcode after 11pm.

But the police identified that people were still entering after 11pm, there was a continued lack of a drugs safe, lack of staff training records and a further review was called for.

As the breaches of the licence conditions happened so soon, it was decided to be “appropriate and proportionate” to revoke the licence.

Cllr John Smitten, member of the licensing committee, said: “It is a real shame that we have had to do this and I felt sorry for them but our hands were tied.

“The law is the law and we had to stick to it.

“As the licence had been breached so soon after the last meeting, there was nothing else we could do.”

The Barcode had the right of appeal to the magistrates’ court, within 21 days of the council’s decision.

The bar’s owners have been contacted for a comment.