A kebab shop owner has been landed with a £6,000 court bill after his appeals against three refusals of a late night licence bid were dismissed.
Bahaaeldin Abdelalim refused to take no for an answer when Brighton and Hove Council turned down his application to open Station Grill in Queens Road past 11pm, making two more applications and then appealing all three decisions to reject them.
Yesterday he told Brighton Magistrates Court he has offered to install CCTV and hire security guards if it means he can get the late night refreshment licence, which anyone serving hot food past 11pm needs. It does not include alcohol sales.
He also argued that it was not fair to have given other similar business in the area a late night refreshment licence, but not him.
But the court heard the way he dealt with police and council officers – plus being discovered opening beyond his 11pm finish during a surprise visit – mean they now have no confidence he can be trusted to stick to any conditions agreed.
The court was shown a video of PC Andre Bernascone visiting the kebab shop at 11.35pm on August 1 last year. As he walked in, a customer was handed a box by the man behind the counter, the door was open, the lights were on and there were customers eating inside.
Mr Abdelalim, known as Bahaa, told PC Bernascone that no sales had taken place after 11pm. When asked if he could provide footage from the cameras by the till to prove this, he said they did not record footage.
And he said the electronic till, which was still on and which his 12-year-old daughter was sat behind, was not working properly and so he couldn’t show any records of when sales had taken place.
The court was told about a meeting held five days later with PC Bernascone and Sussex Police’s licensing officer Hannah Staplehurst to discuss what possible steps Bahaa could take to get a licence.
At this point, he had made his third application for a licence – this time to open until 5am.
PC Bernascone said: “At the end of the meeting I myself was more convinced that Bahaa was somebody that was at best very difficult to work with.
“A lot of the answers to issues raised in that video changed. There were a lot of things said that we didn’t think were relevant or helped his case.
“It made it extremely difficult to have a working relationship with Bahaa, not helped by the fact that as a result of the meeting, a complaint came in that had to be dealt with by our professional standards department. They found no case to answer.”
Giving evidence, Ms Staplehurst said Bahaa had made another standards complaint against her two or three weeks ago as a result of a phonecall – and had threatened to make one about her boss when he emailed Bahaa.
The complaint against Ms Staplehurst was also dismissed by professional standards, and the one against her boss was never submitted.
She explained Sussex Police’s position was that late night takeaways provide a place for drunk people to clash with each other rather than going home, saying: “They may not be stumbling out, but they stumble in and if they clash with other groups, it causes violence.
“Personally, I would have concerns. I wouldn’t be confident to work with Bahaa and I still think crime and disorder along Queens Road is a concern.”
The court was told about pictures sent to the licensing department anonymously, which police had subsequently established were from someone who works in the Queens Road area.
They purported to show Station Grill opening past 11pm on three different nights last summer.
They were presented by police to the licensing hearing for Bahaa’s third application last August. In response, Bahaa had submitted his own picture, which he said had been taken at the same time as one of the ones sent to police, but showed Station Grill shut.
However, it was established that it was actually a picture taken by the local democracy reporting service which had been Photoshopped – but still showed daylight.
Bahaa told the court he had submitted the picture to demonstrate that photographs could be altered, and so therefore the panel shouldn’t trust the ones sent anonymously to police either.
Giving evidence yesterday, Brighton and Hove City Council’s licensing manager said that after taking legal advice, the panel agreed no to take any of the photos into account.
After retiring to consider the case, the bench decided to dismiss all three appeals.
Chair Thomas Wands said: “We spent a great deal of time and indeed effort in reading a foot high bundle and in understanding your arguments and the material you have put together.
“We want to congratulate you on your diligence in this matter.
“We tried at all times to comply with your right to a fair trial and the ECHR.
“We find that the council’s licencing panel on three occasions handled your application equitably and within the rules.
“Just because your premises do not fall foul of the rules and are operating does not mean you are discriminated against.
“It simply that at this point in time another venue in the vicinity could cause problems to society.
“The concept of cumulative impact isn’t being understood by you. It’s an issue in the cumulative, everything together impact.
“It’s clear to us that the officers and the panel have concerns, some of which we share, around your ability to engage with the authorities if a licence were to be granted.
“There have been some instances of less than candid and honest engagement.
“There are no exceptional circumstances we can find that would entitle you to be granted a licence. If there were then this would have to be managed by conditions and we have that the panels and the the police have concerns that this would not be successful.
“We are aware of the impact on you and your business and we have not taken this decision lightly. We do not uphold this appeal.”
Appearing for the council, Camille Richards asked the court to award costs of £7,100 – some of which stemmed from the case being adjourned in September because Bahaa had submitted 1,700 pages of evidence to the court which no bench would have time to read.
She said the costs should be awarded in full as a deterrent to Bahaa simply continuing to make multiple doomed applications.
The bench yesterday reduced this to £6,000.
Lol bahaa thinks that because the council is inept that he can just keep on moaning on. Thankfully the courts have backbone and have slapped him with a nice deterrence. £6K, that’s a lot of kebabs son
I’ve written previosuly on articles about this that if he had spent more time gaining experience in working late nights at another take away it would improve his chances of getting a licence (as well as spending time learnign about the licensing regime.
But instead he spent time and money (and now an extra £6k he has to pay to the council) making multiple applications and then going to court.
Some of that money could have been used to update the CCTV system for example.
But he seems to be a person who will blame the police and council for his own actions.
I’m getting the same impression, Chris. The licensing officers are super helpful if you spend the time engaging with them and taking on their advice. For them to be so negative about their impression of this gentleman really does indicate, at least to me, how unsuitable he is to run a late-night business.
Close the clown, teach him a lesson in common sense, in reality he’s probably being “advised” by others who have skated past the system
I wish the planning department had the same backbone and would deal with Nayeb and Nayeb2 which both continue to operate with impunity despite their massive pavement extensions deemed illegal.
Planning department staff numbers have been cut down drastically so they can’t respond quickly