Police officer tells Haringey licensing committee about concerns over early morning street drinking culture in West Green Road, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

The Metropolitan Police has raised concerns about an alcohol licence application from a Seven Sisters supermarket.

Food retailer 6 Brothers, in West Green Road near Seven Sisters Station, has applied for a premises licence in order to sell alcohol from Monday to Sunday between 7am and 11pm.

At a licensing sub-committee yesterday (Monday 3rd) the applicant, Mohammed Rahman, explained business was “going well” and customers wanted to shop for their alcohol in the “same place” as they did groceries and granting the application would “provide more growth”.

A CCTV system will be installed, staff trained, and a log kept of incidents, should they occur, in a bid to uphold the licensing objectives.

But despite the conditions put forward, the Met Police deemed them “insufficient”. PC Francis Peters said the Met Police submitted the objection “purely because of the early start times”.

He suggested the store open at 7am but start selling alcohol from 9am, but this was not agreed.

PC Peters said he was aware of other off-licences in West Green Road and that they too had early opening times but felt with the number already in the area granting approval risked causing “anti-social behavior or crime”.

He added the Met Police had “no issues” with the shop or the applicant specifically.

Daliah Barrett, Haringey Council’s licensing team leader, said the area and wider borough had an issue with heavy street drinking.

She said: “Haringey does have an additional problem of certain cultures that are doing street drinking and as PC Peters has said, they do drink the stronger stuff. They’re out there, with the bottles of spirits, it becomes a gathering.

“This is not your regular street drinker that you may see, we do also have a culture of street drinking that takes place along West Green Road and it has been a cause for concern that we’ve had to try and address.”

Mohammed’s representative, Nick Semper, said the applicant was open to joining a pub watch or a responsible retailers scheme.

The applicant was also open to adding the condition that no lager, beer or cider, exceeding alcohol by volume of 6.5%, would be stocked or sold, with the exception of craft beers or artisan products.

These were the kinds of products, Nick explained, people are likely to drink in the street purchased.

Committee member Nick da Costa suggested joining the responsible retailer plus scheme. This includes not selling single cans of larger, beer, cider or items separated from packs, and not selling bottles of spirits smaller than 350ml.

Mohammed said he was open to joining this scheme.

In his closing statement Nick Semper said: “We offered those conditions to placate the hours police had suggested. The police say there’s quite a few [off-licences] in the area, but I would point out ‘need’ is not a matter for the licensing authority.”

Following the hearing the licensing committee withdrew to make a decision which will be announced early next week.

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