New Cannock burger restaurant granted licence to sell food until 3am
A new burger restaurant in Cannock has been granted a premises licence to sell takeaway food until 3am – but it must secure planning permission for extra opening hours before it can start operating late at night.
When change of use from a shop to a hot food takeaway was allowed on appeal for the Stafford Road premises in 2009, conditions included restricting opening hours to 11am to 10pm Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday trading hours.
The unit was previously a fish and chip shop before reopening as Wall Street Burgers in the summer. Its operator now wants to serve up hot food after 11pm, and applied for a premises licence to stay open until 3am seven days a week.
There were no objections to the premises licence application from responsible authorities such as Staffordshire Police or Cannock Chase Council. But six residents raised concerns the late night opening hours could lead to noise nuisance in the surrounding residential area.
One said: “Extending trading hours until 3am would seriously affect our children’s ability to sleep and concentrate on their studies. This disruption will inevitably impact their education and our household’s daily routine.
“Furthermore, our property is situated in a primarily residential area. Allowing late night operations is likely to increase noise from customers, conversations, and vehicle movements during the early hours of the morning. This increased activity will disturb not only our family but also our neighbours, reducing the peace and quiet expected in a residential setting.”
Another said: “I am concerned about antisocial behaviour if Wall St Burgers are allowed a licence after 11pm. There is a strong possibility that a number of customers at that time will be returning from town having consumed alcohol; being close to town we already suffer from drunken anti social behaviour and the food outlet will undoubtedly be a draw to these individuals.
“There is already light pollution when trying to get to sleep – this is acceptable until 11pm but not at 2-3am. More concerning is the noise that is created by customers arriving and departing the premises; a late licence will dramatically increase this at a time when we are trying to sleep.”
Cannock Chase Council’s Licensing Sub-Committee met to consider the application on Tuesday (September 30). The panel heard that applicant Jibraan Raza Shah already ran four other Wall Street Burger branches across the West Midlands, including sites in Coventry and Birmingham.
In a response to objectors, made before Tuesday’s hearing, he said the premises would close to customers at 11pm each day if the late night refreshment licence was granted. After 11pm it would operate a delivery-only service, directly employing all delivery drivers to give it control over conduct, noise levels and behaviour.
Mr Shah told the panel: “We haven’t had any issues in any of our other branches. If there is something that concerns you we are here to help and we want to keep a safe and clean environment.
“We had so many responses to this application we took that into consideration and came up with a response that we will close the store (to the public) at 11pm. We will not use external drivers, only in-house drivers doing deliveries and they will try and keep the noise down as much as possible.
“There won’t be anyone congregating outside because there will be no access to the premises after 11pm. Our drivers will be told we don’t want them to go up the cul de sac unless they have got to because there is a delivery there.
“There will be a maximum of three drivers at a time and the car park has enough room for three drivers. We have a litter picking system and we have extended that – we empty the council bin outside when it is full.”
The panel agreed to grant the premises licence allowing hot food sales until 3am, subject to a series of conditions. These include external lighting being switched off at 11pm, regular litter picks of the area and not allowing delivery vehicle to idle or leave lights on after 11pm.
Mr Shah was also reminded that he must secure planning permission to enable the premises to stay open after 10pm and on Sundays. This would be the subject of a separate application to the district council.
