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Items
No. Item

1.

Application for the transfer of a premises licence - Queen Victoria Great Dunmow pdf icon PDF 66 KB

To consider the application for the transfer of a premises licence – Queen Victoria, Great Dunmow.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman introduced the Panel and explained procedure to those present.

 

The Licensing Team Leader gave a summary of the report.

 

Mr Hadayouth Choudhury and Mr MD Anayet Chowdhury had applied to transfer premises licence Queen Victoria, 79 Stortford Road, Great Dunmow into their names from the current licence holders Mr Ziaul Chowdhury and Mr Omar Shorif. On 24 July 2018, the Licensing Authority received a notice under Section 42 (6) of the Act from Essex Police in objection to this application, including a detailed account of their reasons.

 

G Ashford and V Powell summarised the case made by Essex Police. A review of the Queen Victoria’s licence was due to take place on 11 September 2018, due to the results of the immigration raid which took place on 6 July 2018. This raid found three people with no right to work in the UK working at the premises, two of whom had no right to remain in the UK. This was the fourth time since 2013 that illegal immigrants had been found to be working at the Queen Victoria.

 

Three days after this raid had taken place, the premises licence holders submitted an application to transfer the licence to Hadayouth Chowdhury and Anayet Chowdhury. It was contended that the application for the immediate transfer of a premises licence was an attempt to protect the business at the hearing for the review

 

Z Chowdhury said errors of judgement on his part had led to him employing illegal immigrants in the past, without completing proper checks on their identification. He was now employing CSS consultants to take him through a course to assess how to properly identify people with the right to remain and work in the UK. When the immigration raid took place on 6 July, the three people working illegally at the Queen Victoria had only been working there since earlier that evening. Z Chowdhury had only been at the premises for 11 minutes and so had only just begun vetting his new worker’s IDs.

 

M Harmon said the application for a transfer of a licence was submitted, the family were not aware it would have implications for the review. The transfer had always been planned to take place and H Chowdhury had been working part time in the Queen Victoria to prepare for taking over the licence. The Queen Victoria was part of a family business and it was acceptable to keep it in the family.

 

H Chowdhury confirmed he was also studying the CSS course in order to prepare himself for taking over the licence of the Queen Victoria. There was a website available to employers which allowed them to input the potential employee’s name and national insurance number to confirm if they had the right to work in the UK. He said that if in doubt about the right to work of potential employees, he would consult his father and his uncles. He felt he knew enough to be able to carry out the duty of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.