Council calls time

Tougher rules on booze sales set to be approved

DUNDEE councillors will rubber-stamp plans to introduce stricter alcohol licensing criteria for pubs, supermarkets and offlicences after a majority of residents expressed support for the proposals.

Members of the council’s licensing board are to be asked later this week to adopt a policy on the overprovision of alcohol in the city.

It means new shops or pubs that want to sell booze will have to prove they won’t harm public health in doing so — or face their application being rejected.

Outlets which sell food with alcohol, such as restaurants, will be exempt from the new rules.

Councillors voted unanimously in favour of the plan in June, before launching a public consultation on the issue.

The consultation closed on December 29, with a majority of respondents saying they believed there were too many licensed premises in Dundee.

Figures show that there are currently 143 on-sales premises in Dundee, 129 off-sales premises and 166 on and off-sales premises.

Councillors will now consider whether to apply the new policy to both pubs and off-sale premises or off-sale premises only.

The board’s previous proposal, which called for any new licensed premises applications outside the Waterfront to be rejected unless they could prove they wouldn’t have a negative community impact, was thrown out after a court hearing in 2016.

Last year the Dundee City Alcohol and Drug Partnership lent the board its support for a fresh policy on overprovision.

Councillor Stewart Hunter, convener of the licensing board, said improving public health was a “key remit” of the committee and was not about being “killjoys”.

“The board is satisfied that there is, in principle, overprovision of off-sales and public house-type premises in Dundee,” he said.

The board meets on Thursday.

Stewart Hunter said the council had a key remit to improve public health.