Late-night levy on the cards for Bournemouth bars and clubs

3:00pm Saturday 6th October 2012 in Latest By Melanie Vass

DANCING ON A FRIDAY NIGHT: People hit the streets to partake in some of the town’s vibrant nightlife DANCING ON A FRIDAY NIGHT: People hit the streets to partake in some of the town’s vibrant nightlife

THE idea of imposing a late-night levy on bars and clubs or introducing a blanket closing time will be considered as ways of improving Bournemouth’s night-time economy.

The town’s licensing board is keeping an open mind on the Government’s two new proposed measures – Early Morning Restriction Orders (EMROs) and late-night levies.

But it has promised that no decisions will be made one way or another until the trade has been fully consulted.

Powers enabling local councils to introduce either or both measures are due to come into force on October 31, but the government has not yet provided detailed guidance on how the schemes would work.

EMROs would apply to a defined geographical area and would mean that every business in that area would have to shut at a set time. This could be as early as midnight.

Late-night levies would require owners of businesses operating past midnight to make a financial contribution to the cost of policing or clean-up operations.

Licensing solicitor Philip Day, of Horsey Lightly Fynn, warned councillors both proposals would have serious implications. “EMROs would mark a return to the problems caused by uniform closing times,” he said.

“It might well be that it would also send out a statement about Bournemouth that would run contrary to the town’s efforts to promote itself as a tourist resort.

“And as for late-night levies, many businesses are running on a knife-edge and the additional cost of a levy could be the final straw that breaks a number of camels’ backs.”

A recent report on the town’s night-time economy, carried out by Feria Urbanism, said both measures should be approached with caution and there was little consensus that either would provide “magic bullets.”

“Both mechanisms, if implemented, could also come with a stigma attached, sending out a harsh and negative message to investors and visitors from outside the town that the place has a problem and is a place to avoid,” the report said.

Councillors agreed that it was premature to consider either scheme now but resolved to look at them further once the regulations were in place.

What residents say

ABBY Rhodes, 20, of Charminster said: “We’re students and we don’t go out until 11 so I definitely wouldn’t want to see pubs and clubs closing early. However I do think perhaps they should clean up outside their premises themselves.”

ROXANNE Ward, 21, a Bournemouth University student living in Charminster, said: “We generally don’t go out until 11 or 11.30pm so I wouldn’t agree with early closing hours. I don’t think it would solve the problem anyway. People would just drink outside.”

GRACE James, 20, a Bournemouth University student living in Charminster, said: “I think lots of students would be put off going out if places were closing earlier and pubs and clubs would lose so much money. The levy is a bit more acceptable and is worth thinking about.”

Comments(26)

KLH says...
4:11pm Sat 6 Oct 12

Bring it on the students and the clubbers have had it their way for long enough. The town is trashed and a no go area for anyone else. Make them pay to have their mess cleaned up, will take the fun out of making it in the first place!

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Drew_Peacock says...
4:23pm Sat 6 Oct 12

2 out of the 3 students say "we don't go out until 11 or 11.30", obviously not bothered about the other residents in the areas of Winton and Charminster that are saturated with student houses, who suffer nightly noise late at night, and especially in the early mornings when they come home drunk in a taxi and think it's funny to go up the road shouting and banging the wheelie bin lids. Hopefully the councils additional licensing plan for HMO's will result in landlords selling up when they don't want to bring these properties up to standard with fire detection, insulation etc. Some area's of Winton are like a war zone at night, with people moving their children from bedroom to bedroom to try and find a bit of quiet - totally unacceptable - get the students out of the shared houses and get the Universities at Wallisdown to provide halls of residents in an area where the students will only disturb each other.

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arthur1948 says...
4:55pm Sat 6 Oct 12

the pic above says it all...no go area for decent folk...give us back our town..

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politicaltrainspotter says...
4:57pm Sat 6 Oct 12

When the Licencing Act of 2003 came into law too be honest it was not thought through.And so came binge drinking.

Emro's and LNL are away of returning the licencing back to the old day's.

In consultation though there maybe issues as for example , The Triangle closes at midnight , yet , the pubs and clubs around Horseshoe Common stay open to 3am.You will then see a displacement of people in a defined area and that will impact on Police resources.

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Dexterwest says...
5:28pm Sat 6 Oct 12

When I was 18-21 in the late 90s, if you weren't at a club by 10 you couldn't get in. Drinks were cheaper, and town was a lot safer. Nowadays, no one goes out til late due to the cost of drinks, £4 a pint, £7 a double, £9 a cocktail. No wonder everyone pre drinks, and by the time they get down town are far more intoxicated than if they'd been in town drinking. So what it's done is caused the mess that's happened now, if anything tax on alcohol has caused the problems we now have. Lower the tax and it would change people minds on staying at home until late drinking their bottles of vodka.

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Clunge says...
6:38pm Sat 6 Oct 12

Surely the students can get their head around the concept of going out earlier? Just as us older generation did. Its not difficult. Two hours of lectures, spend half an hour downloading someone else's essay from the internet, knock up a feast of beans on toast, pub by 7.30pm, queue for a club at 11.30pm, drunk and kebab and home by 2.00am. Job done. if anything pubs would make more money from the older crowd. I used to love drinking on a friday night straight after work or the odd grab a granny night midweek, but the older crowd just don't go out anymore, there are hardly any venues that are not virtual youth clubs and the pubs are dead in the early evening. I would also bring back a dress code, proper trousers and proper shoes, none of this chav gear. It added to the fun, seeing some bloke trying to walk in a pair of borrowed oversized shoes.

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mikeymagic2 says...
6:42pm Sat 6 Oct 12

where does all the trash come from that invades Bournemouth every weekend? I'm fairly fit and a half decent boxer but feared for my life when in town the other weekend! I've not been for a few years even though I live very close by and was ashamed of the place.

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aerolover says...
7:05pm Sat 6 Oct 12

Do we get all the problems all year or only when the students are at Uni?

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Mike Pickering says...
7:39pm Sat 6 Oct 12

Good job - we need to think about what we want in our town from the top-down, namely what do want to permit to happen for the greater good. Do we want hundreds of idiots in premises at 3am drinking and then outside at 4 and 5am fighting, with low blood sugar and plans to get home scuppered ? No. Make it difficult (expensive) for owners to operate past that time, they'll pass on the costs to their customers who will promptly stop going there, and the 'market will have taken care' of the problem. If we want people to come out and go home earlier, change the times that they're allowed to do that. If pubs can't get people in the door earlier, then the problem is with the price of the product. I don't propose making drink dirt cheap, but if they were one price before 12 and another afterwards, you can bet there'd be a sea-change in what went on in town. It did used to work better back in the 90s, the only problem was drunk chavs, and drunk underage people who couldn't get in anywhere, and the solution to those problems doesn't lie in licensing changes.

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KLH says...
7:44pm Sat 6 Oct 12

I listened out of the window at 4.am the other day on a Sunday morning, practically every human sound I heard wouldn't have been out of place in Monkey World. No difference, could have been in the jungle....

Why do women have to squeal at everything?

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cherries189 says...
7:56pm Sat 6 Oct 12

bring back the old hours closed at 2300. and see if we can get rid of some of the bars and clubs

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Mike Pickering says...
8:16pm Sat 6 Oct 12

^ Yeh, drinkers would still spend all their money, which is what the pubs need to survive. And I do want the good ones to thrive, rather than everyone spread as thin as they can with hundreds of rivals.
Please can we have exceptions for proper dance clubs where people only drink up til about 11 and stay til 6 or 7 ? People coming out of them never cause trouble, in fact if anything, they're too nice...

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cherries189 says...
8:40pm Sat 6 Oct 12

@Mike Pickering
'People coming out of them never cause trouble, in fact if anything, they're too nice..'.

i think largely due to the amount of ecstasy that was consumed but you are right a lot less trouble

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BmthNewshound says...
8:47pm Sat 6 Oct 12

So now we could see rows of empty bars and clubs to join the rows of empty shops in the town centre.
.
If the night time economy is hit by draconian and expensive new controls we'll see large numbers of empty clubs and bars to join the large number of empty shops.
.
Bournemouth's draconian parking restrictions and high parking charges have driven people out of the town during the day and new restrictions on clubs and bars will drive people out of town during the night.
.
People moaning about students in Winton and Charminster should think before welcoming the new proposals. If the new levies and restrictions result in clubs and bars closing students will simply party at home causing more disturance to local residents. If you don't like living in an area popular with students the answers simple, move.

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Drew_Peacock says...
8:57pm Sat 6 Oct 12

BmthNewshound wrote:
So now we could see rows of empty bars and clubs to join the rows of empty shops in the town centre.
.
If the night time economy is hit by draconian and expensive new controls we'll see large numbers of empty clubs and bars to join the large number of empty shops.
.
Bournemouth's draconian parking restrictions and high parking charges have driven people out of the town during the day and new restrictions on clubs and bars will drive people out of town during the night.
.
People moaning about students in Winton and Charminster should think before welcoming the new proposals. If the new levies and restrictions result in clubs and bars closing students will simply party at home causing more disturance to local residents. If you don't like living in an area popular with students the answers simple, move.
BmthNewshound says.
"People moaning about students in Winton and Charminster should think before welcoming the new proposals. If the new levies and restrictions result in clubs and bars closing students will simply party at home causing more disturance to local residents. If you don't like living in an area popular with students the answers simple, move"

And then what happens - the decent families move out, absentee landlords who don't give a stuff for the area get their hands on even more property to cram with students, and a the area ends up as a ghetto. It is a general principal that the unacceptable behaviour needs to be addressed, not for the victims of it to be forced from their homes.

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Ivan Opinion says...
9:48pm Sat 6 Oct 12

KLH wrote:
Bring it on the students and the clubbers have had it their way for long enough. The town is trashed and a no go area for anyone else. Make them pay to have their mess cleaned up, will take the fun out of making it in the first place!
do you not realise that the nightlife economy is so vital to bournemouth that without it -- its going to have drastic finacial consequensces ????

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Ivan Opinion says...
9:51pm Sat 6 Oct 12

cherries189 wrote:
bring back the old hours closed at 2300. and see if we can get rid of some of the bars and clubs
Fortunalty that idea is not going to happen now or at any point in the future..managing the centre properly is far more important

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darren_55 says...
10:46pm Sat 6 Oct 12

Drew_Peacock wrote:
BmthNewshound wrote:
So now we could see rows of empty bars and clubs to join the rows of empty shops in the town centre.
.
If the night time economy is hit by draconian and expensive new controls we'll see large numbers of empty clubs and bars to join the large number of empty shops.
.
Bournemouth's draconian parking restrictions and high parking charges have driven people out of the town during the day and new restrictions on clubs and bars will drive people out of town during the night.
.
People moaning about students in Winton and Charminster should think before welcoming the new proposals. If the new levies and restrictions result in clubs and bars closing students will simply party at home causing more disturance to local residents. If you don't like living in an area popular with students the answers simple, move.
BmthNewshound says.
"People moaning about students in Winton and Charminster should think before welcoming the new proposals. If the new levies and restrictions result in clubs and bars closing students will simply party at home causing more disturance to local residents. If you don't like living in an area popular with students the answers simple, move"

And then what happens - the decent families move out, absentee landlords who don't give a stuff for the area get their hands on even more property to cram with students, and a the area ends up as a ghetto. It is a general principal that the unacceptable behaviour needs to be addressed, not for the victims of it to be forced from their homes.
So long as the trouble stays in the slum/student areas like 'cosmopolitan' charminster or winton, who cares?

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gameon says...
12:40am Sun 7 Oct 12

cherries189 wrote:
bring back the old hours closed at 2300. and see if we can get rid of some of the bars and clubs
If only mate and along with ridding the town of the seedy dives etc include Fatty Carr on the list.

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MrPitiful says...
1:44am Sun 7 Oct 12

I have just walked home through the town centre from the Lansdowne area up to just past West Cliff, arriving home at 1:15am.

Quite late for me!

Anyway, I saw one fight. On the corner by The Horsehoe roundabout.

It was between two men who each must have been at least 50 years old. Knocking seven bells out of each other and off their heads.

A fine example to set to all the bemused 20 year olds,stags and students that were trying to get past them.

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Redgolfer00 says...
5:24am Sun 7 Oct 12

gameon wrote:
cherries189 wrote:
bring back the old hours closed at 2300. and see if we can get rid of some of the bars and clubs
If only mate and along with ridding the town of the seedy dives etc include Fatty Carr on the list.
Whilst on the subject of Mr. Carr, last week in the echo, it was stated that Vclub had gone to the wall but tonight 6/7/10/2012 V was open to all and sundry, is it one rule for him and another rule for other people, how many more are gong to lose money.

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High Treason says...
7:26am Sun 7 Oct 12

Students can afford the uni fees and drink, but they don't pay council tax so we are subsidising their leisure.

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Lord Spring says...
10:27am Sun 7 Oct 12

High Treason wrote:
Students can afford the uni fees and drink, but they don't pay council tax so we are subsidising their leisure.
They dont pay council tax but the landlords includes it and then pockets it claiming the house is occupied by students
And please dont anyone say the goverment subsidises the council. as the goverment has no money it is our money.

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MrPitiful says...
3:00pm Sun 7 Oct 12

Redgolfer00 wrote:
gameon wrote:
cherries189 wrote:
bring back the old hours closed at 2300. and see if we can get rid of some of the bars and clubs
If only mate and along with ridding the town of the seedy dives etc include Fatty Carr on the list.
Whilst on the subject of Mr. Carr, last week in the echo, it was stated that Vclub had gone to the wall but tonight 6/7/10/2012 V was open to all and sundry, is it one rule for him and another rule for other people, how many more are gong to lose money.
The report last week if I remember right was about a couple of various companies that had been dissolved which were owned by the current owner of V club, so V club in itself as a seperate company is still open for business.

If that makes any sense!

Richard Carr apparently doesn't own these, but is employed as a consultant in some form or other.

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Azphreal says...
6:16pm Sun 7 Oct 12

Pubs and clubs do not promote somewhere as a 'tourist resort' and the reason the town needs the 'night time economy' is because the bloody night time economy has killed of the tourists! I worked in an arcade on the seafront and saw the change from where the area would be full of families till late at night until the 'night time economy' seemed to be the only thing thought about and they stopped coming because of the groups of drunken idiots throwing up in the streets,fighting or bonking on the beach.

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Ivan Opinion says...
10:02pm Sun 7 Oct 12

Azphreal wrote:
Pubs and clubs do not promote somewhere as a 'tourist resort' and the reason the town needs the 'night time economy' is because the bloody night time economy has killed of the tourists! I worked in an arcade on the seafront and saw the change from where the area would be full of families till late at night until the 'night time economy' seemed to be the only thing thought about and they stopped coming because of the groups of drunken idiots throwing up in the streets,fighting or bonking on the beach.
Famalies wiill not come to this or any uk based seaside loation with the same love they once did because its too expensive in comparison to going abroad and the weather is to unpredictable.... Whilst you are right in noting the changes - you could not be further from thetruth in relation to the facts of how it has come about...

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