Noise complaints get mixed response from booze board
(CNS Business): While complaints from residents about the noise from the Kings Sports Centre did not prevent the Liquor Licensing Board from granting the facility a music and dance licence, complaints from Casanova’s about its neighbour, Cayman Cabana, resulted in a refusal for the owner’s request for live music.
Last week’s annual general meeting saw a mixed bag of results for new and existing licence holders, but this may be the last time licences are granted under the law as it currently stands. The minister responsible for commerce, Wayne Panton, has promised changes to the law and is exploring the possibility of removing the moratorium on liquor licences.
As a result of improvements on the noise situation at Royal Palms, after the owners invested heavily in equipment to contain the impact music there has on its neighbours, the board made no additional conditions to the licence to specify decibel levels.
A combination of factors saw Dream nightclub on West Bay Road and Pirates Cove Bar in East End placed on probation until December, and Archie’s Place on Shedden Road, which has been battling licensing issues for several years, also had its probation period extended.
Raglan Roper of Roper’s Distributorship in Industrial Way, George Town, was not granted a change of licence from distributor to retail and Dennis Hunter was refused permission to extend his licence to a cabana and deck at Harvey’s Island Grill on South Church Street.
Brain Barnes was one of a number of licensees that complained vociferously last year about seemingly arbitrary and unfair decisions by the board in a meeting in which half the board was forced to recuse itself because of conflicts of interest. This year Barnes finally saw a number of onerous conditions on his mobile bar licence removed.
Robert Hamaty, who also complained at the same meeting about the board’s conflicts, did not get the restrictions on his licence at the Tortuga Rum Company HQ in North Sound Road lifted but he did get permission to operate the Fort Street store from 9am until 7pm Monday to Saturday. Hamaty has stated publicly that the current board chairman, Mitchell Welds, should resign because of conflicts, which he has described as “obvious and so glaring†as both his mother and son are liquor licence holders.
In a Viewpoint published on CNS in August, Hamaty said that the conflicts faced by the chairman were compromising the office itself and raised concerns that by Welds’ own admission of the conflicts, decisions that he has made could all be legally challenged.
Hamaty has pressed government to show the courage and political will necessary to address the issues, maintaining that it could not have been the intention of the framers of the Liquor Licensing Law for any one person to dominate the board. Welds has sat as chairman for 12 years, even though the law limits the post to five years.
He said the local liquor industry is a significant part of the economy and an essential stakeholder in tourism and the public should have confidence in the impartiality of the decisions of the board.
Category: Local Business
