Shop row over booze plan petition

A petition signed by over 70 people against a shop’s plan to sell booze in Birmingham was organised by a rival off-licence, it has been claimed.

The petition raised concerns about the protection of children and an increase in crime among others, but a representative for the applicant complained that the petition had been organised by a rival shop in the same area.

The petition was organised by the owner of the Beer Cellar on Bottetourt Road who claimed residents had signed his petition out of fear over a potential rise in crime.

Swinford News, 3 – 5 Swinford Road, Birmingham, trading under the Lifestyle Express fascia, applied for the licence in order to sell booze between 8am and 10pm Monday to Sunday. In rejecting the complaints a representative for the owner said the petition “lacked substance”.

The matter was heard at a licensing sub-committee at Birmingham City Council on 27 June.

Ms Clover, a representative for Mr Naseem Ali who owns the shop, said: “It is important for the committee to know that the instigator of the petition is not just a concerned member of the community but is actually a rival trader.

“If you look at the petition itself it lacks the structure and the substance that one might expect of a respectable representation.”

Ms Clover also took issue with claims that the local area would “deteriorate” should the alcohol licence be granted.

She said: “The location for Swinford news does not actually suffer from a high crime rate when one looks at it empirically. There are staff who have worked there for years who for them this area is a very pleasant area that doesn’t suffer from crime and disorder. They live there themselves and this is not a troublesome area at all.

“People in a petition will answer the question they are asked and if you look at the way the petition is structured people are being told that the estate does have a high crime rate and that it will increase anti-social behaviour and issues for women and children. None of those contentions are accurate.”

In response to concerns about the safety of children raised in the petition Ms Clover called the fears “misleading.”

She said: “The two local schools are primary schools. The risk of underage sales are far more acute with the presence of a secondary school or a college. Primary school children typically do not feature in any underage sale problems.”

But the owner of the Beer Cellar said the concerns of local residents were legitimate despite his position as a rival in the local area.

He said: “We’ve got just less than 100 people who agreed with what was put into the petition. They have agreed to put their signatures down and there were even other people who agreed with what we were doing but didn’t want to put their name there because they were frightened of reprisals.

“I’m concerned that there will be a negative effect on the area, particularly as the sale of alcohol will be for the whole of the day. If alcohol is made available all day on the estate I think it will have a negative impact on the area.

“You should think about what the people who signed the petition were trying to say. Those people who signed the petition were very brave to put their names down.”