Birmingham bar told to close earlier because of residents' complaints.
Apr 8 2010 by Jane Tyler, Birmingham Mail
AN UPMARKET wine bar and restaurant in Birmingham city centre has been ordered to close two hours earlier every night after a string of complaints from local residents.
Licensing chiefs yesterday imposed the restriction on The Vaults, in Newhall Hill, because professionals who live in yuppie apartments surrounding it complained about the late night noise.
The Vaults used to trade until 4am every night it was open, but now it will have to stop serving alcohol at 12.30am Sunday to Thursday with everyone off the premises by 1.30am. On Fridays and Saturdays the last drinks will be served at 2am with all customers out of the door an hour later.
Members of the city council’s licensing sub committee also put 13 conditions on the licence – including fitting a noise limiting device on the bar’s stereo system and banning customers from standing on the fire escape smoking.
Councillors were asked to change the opening hours after 21 residents sent letters of complaint and a further 55 signed a petition. One of them, Andrew Meager, who lives in Stirling Court, Newhall Hill, said he had lived there for ten years and it was now like “living next to a nightclub”.
He said when the Vaults first opened two years ago it was a restaurant and there were no problems, but lately it had started having a DJ at weekends resulting in loud music.
“We have to put up with shouting and screaming late at night from large crowds, sometimes as many as 20 people, who stand outside on the pavement to smoke,” he said.
Jean McEntire, vice chairman of the Newhall Court residents’ association, said there were 196 apartments with around 400 people in their block and most had been affected at some point by the noise. She said: “We don’t expect peace and quiet all the time because we live in the city centre and accept it is vibrant, but we shouldn’t have premises which trade like a nightclub in our gardens.”
Deborah Shaw, the solicitor representing The Vaults’ premises supervisor, Julian Brown, told the committee the management had “taken their eye off the ball” in recent months due to financial problems and struggling to stay afloat during the recession. But she said that since being alerted to the problems by environmental health officers, it was now working with them and was happy to comply with all the conditions.
