Shrewsbury bar bids for 1am opening
A wine bar in Shropshire could serve alcohol until 1am if a bid to extend opening hours is given the green light.
Bosses at Cromwell's Inn, Dogpole, Shrewsbury, have submitted an application to Shropshire Council licensing chiefs.
They say scores of other bars around them are serving until the early hours and their trade is being hit by having to close early.
The bar is currently allowed to serve alcohol until 11pm Monday to Saturday and 10.30pm on Sunday, although bosses do have a licence allowing them to stay open for 24 hours a day.
The application would see booze sales extended to 1am seven days a week.
But the local authority has received 13 objections to the bid from town centre residents worried about extra noise and nuisance.
A report submitted by officers to members of Shropshire Council's Licensing Act sub-committee says: "Thirteen representations have been received from other persons, who have concerns in respect to crime and disorder, public nuisance and to a lesser extent public safety.
"Principally the concerns relate to the potential nuisance that might be caused by customers leaving the premises and by the noise emanating from within, the use of the garden and first floor terrace area and the proposed hours of trading."
But Mr Mike Avery, owner of Cromwell's, said he and his wife Karen had spent more than £1 million since 2010 to save the building and safeguard more than 20 jobs.
He said: "Through hard work, significant investment and skill we have taken a failing business, where jobs were going to be lost, and now employ 23 local people. Most of our suppliers are in Shropshire.
"It is critical that we are permitted to extend our alcohol licensing hours to remain commercially viable.
"We operate in an area where there are 17 licensed premises very close to us.
"Twelve of those operate beyond 11pm and and all but one of those operate with a licence between 1am and 2am.
"This is the simple fact.
"We suffer tremendous revenue loss when customers simply walk out of our premises at 10.30pm and walk to any one of our neighbouring venues.
"We have 13 objections from residents but not one has said that they have submitted a complaint to us or the police since we took over four years ago.
"They are obviously concerned about noise and disturbance at night but we have robust measures in place."
A final decision will be taken by the licensing committee when it meets from 10am on Tuesday at Shirehall.
Members of the public are welcome to attend.
