Transcript

Order everybody, order. Good evening, welcome to the licensing committee. This is the full licensing committee of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. My name is Peter Golds, I'm chair of the licensing committee and for public information the meeting is being held in person. Committee members and key participants are present at the meeting room. However, I've been informed that some members are joining online. Please note that only the committee members present in the meeting will be able to vote. The meeting, for the purposes of the law and public information, is being filmed for the council's website for public viewing. I would remind members only to speak on my direction and to speak clearly into the microphone. You don't need to lean at them and shout at them, just sit back and speak in the direction and to ensure that their contributions can be properly recorded. And of course, when you've finished your contribution after being called to speak, please switch your microphone off because the next person can't be heard on the overall recording. May I now have apologies for absence, Ms Yasmin? Thank you, chair. So we received apologies for absence on behalf of Councillor Amin Ali, Councillor Shubha Hussain and Councillor Anamir. Thank you, chair. Yeah, Councillor Shubha Hussain can't be here because he's involved in a meeting of the Standards Committee. So that is unfortunate, but we do have clashes of meetings, particularly at this very busy time because of the Christmas break. Item one on our agenda. Do members have any declaration of disclosable pecuniary interests? I have none. Matter of record, Ms Yasmin, members have all declared they have no disposable members, no disposable pecuniary interests. Thank you. May I now invite members to agree the mesensing of the licensing committee is held on the 13th of June, 22nd of October. Are they agreed? Ms Yasmin, they have been agreed and at the end of the meeting I'll sign them for the records. Thank you. We now have come on to item 3.1 is reports for consideration. They're on pages 13 to 24 of our agenda, but before we discuss I'd like to invite Mr Lewis, the service manager, to report to us. And I'd like to actually say to all members and indeed to our officers, Happy New Year and sort of welcome back after the break. And I'm just rather sorry that we've sort of got this, because of the break we've had for the best part of three weeks, we've got a real collision of meetings. But thanks everybody, both officers for coming along and thanks members for their forbearance. And Mr Lewis. Thank you, Chair, and Happy New Year to the members of the licensing committee. This report is an update report to the licensing committee on the licensing enforcement visits undertaken by the licensing team between the 1st of April, 2023 and the 31st of March, 2024, and then the 1st of April, 2024 to the 31st of October this year. Sorry, 2024, last year. Clearly, I'm still in 2024. These visits check compliance with the licensing act of 2003 in respect of premises where intelligence suggests non-compliance. There is approximately 1,315 licensed premises within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Licensed premises include bars, pubs, clubs, restaurants, off-license, late-night takeaways and cafe-type premises. In 2023-24, 48 inspections were carried out by the licensing team. 29 of these were by ParkGuard, who operate the Outer Bowers noise team, noise service. And then there were 76 warning letters sent out by the team following these visits. A breakdown of these visits and warning letters sent out can be found in Appendix 1. Just to note the difference between the amounts of visits and then the warning letters themselves. This is mainly due to duplication. When we send warning letters out to licensed premises, there is a difference because there's a difference between the licensed premises themselves, having a different address, often to the registered license holder, and also to the DPS. So you can be in a situation where you're sending out three letters to each premises. In 2024-25, up until the end of October 2024, there were 91 inspections completed. Three of these were completed by ParkGuard, and a total of 38 letters were sent out by the team during this period. Again, a breakdown of the total inspections per ward and the warning letters can be found in Appendix 2. The difference between the warning letters and the visits here is down to a number of factors, and these are highlighted in the report, which is on paragraph 5.6 on page 15 of your PACs. I'm not going to go through those verbatim, but however, all of these visits that we have there will generally receive an on-site report, which we don't always count as a warning letter, but they do contain and highlight any issues that were found at the time and any breaches. So even though a warning letter may not have been sent within this period, they will have actually received something on-site. In 2023-24, four formal enforcement investigations were opened, and in 2024-25, up until October 2024, there were seven formal enforcement investigations open. And if you look at Appendix 3, this lists these formal enforcement investigations per year period. One other thing to note as well is that in 2023-24, the licensing team objected to 57 out of the 196 license applications for premises licenses and variation of a premises license. And in 24-25, up until October 2024, the licensing objected to 45 out of the 94 premises license applications and variations that were received by the team. That concludes my presentation in regards to the report. I'll now ask members if they've got any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Lewis, for the report. May I kick off? One of the national newspapers that obviously FOI'd every local authority in the country to refer to dirty premises, when I saw it in their website, I thought, well, let's have a look at Tower Hamlets. And there are some pretty shocking stories of premises awarded nil or one for their standard of hygiene. Do we look into those and possibly consider a visit? Yes, in answer to that. I mean, this is under food hygiene legislation. So, not to go into it too much, because we are speaking about licensing here, but what we do with those is they are categorized according to risk. So, it's sort of A, B, C, D, E. And they will, A being the higher risk and E being the lower risk. There is a food enforcement plan, which we produce every year, which is taken to our lead member. And that details, it's published on our website, that details what our approach is towards food enforcement. But we, as a borough, have completed all our A's, B's and high risk C's. We're currently working on the D's and the E's as well, which are the lower risk ones. But, in answer to your question, yes, they are inspected and we do look at them. Mr Melnick. I'm going to add to what Ms Lewis says. I mean, obviously, because they're not always going to be licensed premises, they won't come before you. But, as obviously the Council's enforcement law, I can assure you that we do do a substantial number of food safety prosecutions every single year. So, I went from a borough that did virtually none to one that does several every single year. I've had more in the last, I think in the first month I've been here than I had in the last five years previous. So, that is something we do do a lot of. No, it's just I noticed, because I looked at some of the addresses and they clearly were licensed premises. Because we're dealing with late night refreshments and one on particular on the Isle of Dogs, which I know is definitely licensed. And, frankly, it looks so bad. I think anybody walking past it ought to be very careful, but there you are. Are there any questions to Mr Lewis, Abdi and Farouk? Thank you, Chair. I've got several questions, but I'll start with one and then allow colleagues coming after. You kind of mentioned the 5.6 and the warning letters and the reasons why. I want to play through just a bit more information around the compliance. So, each I issued a report on one step as it's done. Is that then noted in a wider system? Because there can be an occasion where you go to a food place, might have been dirty or whatever, but several times. But every time they've kind of cleaned up their acts or they've had a report on their day, but it's not required there to be a warning letter. So, at what point does a threshold met where they might have been given a few reports, but actually it's never quite crossed over to that threshold. But because it's a recurring issue, actually, we're not nipping that systemic issue in the body and actually deal with the chronic issue there. If we stick purely on licensing, I mean, generally across environment health and training standards, all visits are recorded and they're recorded on our database. And generally, licensing officers, TS officers and EHOs, in our training, will always be told to look at the history of a premises before you go out to them. Because there may be other issues and safety issues that you need to look at in regards to that. But if we look at just purely on licensing visits, in terms of the warnings, I think what you're asking, is there a cumulative effect? It would be in terms of us looking at it, in terms of how the frequency of inspections go. I mean, we have what's called an enforcement rotor, which is just a code that we put onto the visit. And that basically just shows that we've had complaints, either via members of the public or coming in through our licensing enforcement visits, through councillors and various so-and-so-forth leads. But we do, we can't really use cumulative for enforcement. We'd have to actually see a breach of the Act itself, which does also constitute a breach of their conditions, for us to take an enforcement action against them. We could warn them, but we can't take formal enforcement action unless there's been a breach of that legislation. Mr. Clarefessor, does that mean you can't issue a warning letter? Is that something you can do? Is a warning letter an official sanction or kind of an act? We would, we'd always issue a warning letter whenever we find a breach of legislation, and that would include a breach of their licence. But we couldn't do it for the cumulative. Well, they get one all the time. So you would, you would note it in the letter. So, for instance, if we take the argument that, say, Joe Bloggs got a warning letter for breaching their licence here, but it wasn't enough to take prosecution, then we see them again, then you probably would take prosecution. Or if it's relatively minor, you'd still refer to the other warning letters further back. So, though, I suppose, yeah, it's cumulative and you wouldn't normally take it into effect unless it's a breach, you would, if you're taking a case to court, you certainly would, a case to legal, you would certainly highlight that, well, they've breached here, they've breached here, they've breached here. So, obviously, there is a problem there, a pattern, if that answers your question. So, it does, it kind of partly answers my question. I suppose it's, we do line, oh, sorry, go ahead. I can add, I can clarify, I think, where licence premises has had a formal warning for stand open beyond its hours, for example, and there's evidence they've not heeded that warning, that would be one of those formal investigations, which is in the appendices at the back, so that we would automatically launch a formal investigation. So, with a view to prosecution, but as you explained, that doesn't always necessarily mean there will be a prosecution, because it still has to be sufficient evidence, and it has to be in the public interest, in accordance with our enforcement policy. But, yeah, wherever someone has had a warning, and there's evidence they've not heeded that warning, there will always be a follow-up investigation with a view to prosecution, if that helps to answer your question. Yeah, so, no, it does, but I just, I suppose it's, it's a bit of that grey area, isn't it, where we could potentially be, where one shop could have had several visits, and not quite met the threshold for a, a warning letter, or to go to the formal process, but it's been given a report on the day, but the fact that we're not taken into consideration, in a span of two years or four years, they've been visited several times, like, that doesn't factor in. So, it's just that I was trying to get to, but you've kind of answered it. Yeah, I think we always look at the previous, there has been several warnings or several breaches that would definitely be taken into consideration for the trigger for a prosecution, because we do have to consider previous history. So, any shop that's had lots of breaches or lots of warnings is far more likely to be prosecuted than one that's only had one or two, yeah. There is one other aspect to that as well, is in that if, it probably wouldn't meet, it probably wouldn't meet it unless it was serious that we take a review of that license premises, because this is now in civil action, not beyond a reasonable doubt. But if that premise is then wanted to sort of extend its hour, so to speak, and we've got an application, that history of non-compliance certainly would be looked at by the licensing officers, and most likely probably used as part of an objection, because you'd be saying, well, you're not complying here, so therefore why would you comply with the, you know, balanced probabilities, you're probably not going to comply with these hours. Thanks, Mr Lewis. Councillor Ahmed. Thank you, Chair, just wanted to, a bit of clarification on something, import products like cigarettes and other things, as well as mocks, does this fall under the licensing when you do your visit and inspection, do you see under those products as well? Sorry, cigarettes and? Mocks, laughing guess. Yes and no, I suppose. I mean, it depends, if it's a licensed premises, and they are doing breaches of one, so if they're breaching tobacco regulations, or certainly if they're doing NOx, which is now a class C drug, we can't take prosecution on NOx, we do do stuff on tobacco. However, however, however, it's similar to what I mentioned just a moment ago, we would probably look at that, if it was serious enough, that we'd look at it possibly to think about whether or not we want to review their licence. It wouldn't be prosecution, it wouldn't be prosecution, it wouldn't be prosecution, but it wouldn't be prosecution, but it would be something we consider a review on, or if there's an outstanding application in, then do we want to object that application? Because if they're breaching tobacco legislation, if they're selling NOx as a class C drug, then you go into a position really where are they going to see the licence and objectives? Are they going to uphold them? Probably not. Yeah, again, just to clarify, I mean, they are two separate regimes, but linked in terms of, obviously, the trading standards team carry out inspections, we do lots of seizures, we do prosecutions, but also where we have seized elicit tobacco, even before a prosecution, if it's a licensed premises, and also separate regimes, they are very much linked. Thank you for that. So, when we have done a test purchase, it was more of intentional, like more of late-night refreshment, but when we visited, we realised that they are selling single cigarettes, and other illegiate tobacco, so we have seized elicit legal elections, and also late-night refreshment, we are taking legal action. We have done multiple test purchase, and currently licensing and trading standard will be working together to potentially, like now, for prosecutions. Yes, we do find sometimes, or if we cannot take any actions at the time, we normally inform the relevant, like in the trading standard, or if it's for the NOCs, we will inform the local police, I mean, licensing police. Thank you, Chair, thank you, Chom, and Happy New Year. Basically recently you probably noticed everywhere, like my ward as well, the different ward as well, you can see there are a lot of e-cigarette shops, and I got many complaints from the residents, they said, you know, those e-cigarette they are selling to the underage kids, and this kind of activities, do you visit there, or any caution or anything, like, any warning for them, for the new opening? You can see there are many of them everywhere, in the whole borough. Yeah, very similar to the last answer, with tobacco, it's exactly the same with vapes, although, again, it's different legislation, the Trading Standards Team enforced the legislation on vapes, and we see lots of illegal vapes. We also do the underage sales test purchasing, we've had quite a few prosecutions on underage sales of vapes. And as you've seen in the news, there does seem to be this, what they call, youth epidemic of vaping, and there's new legislation coming in line to try to control that, to make child appealing vapes illegal, banned flavours, et cetera. So there's a lot of change in the legislation in the pipeline, but we're already doing lots of enforcement work there. And again, a similar thing, if they were licensed premises that have been caught even selling to kids, or storing illicit product, then that would be a matter that would be taken into consideration for the review of the licence as well. So there's lots of enforcement going on there, work there as well. We work very much closely with colleagues in public health on that as well, we have regular meetings with public health. There's a lot of enforcement work for both tobacco and vapes. Yeah. Also, you know, many shops just, they are not registered in Tower Hamlets. They're newly opened and they are not registered and they are not licensed. But is there any plan you have, like, increase more visiting those kinds of shops, like e-cigarette shops? Yeah, we have a regular inspection programme anyway for tobacco. I mean, it tends to, I mean, there are some shops that just sell vapes, so you get the mobile phone shops that sell vapes as well. But, well, I think every tobacconist now sells vapes. That's all part of the same inspection programme for tobacco and vapes. So we do regular inspections on those premises. At least two days a quarter we actually go out, because particularly for illicit tobacco, it's almost become like class A drugs now. There's so much money to be made that the shops, it's that lively. So they hide them on the premises. You won't find them just going in by looking around. So we have to actually hire in specialist detection dogs, which are trained sniffer dogs to sniff out the tobacco. So we found them under floorboards in hidden compartments. So two days a quarter, at least, we get the tobacco detection dogs in. But there's a regular programme for both tobacco and vapes with the inspections. And I say, and we do those intensified two days a quarter with specialist detection. There's lots of work going on there, yeah. That's the salute comment. I was going to add, if you do have any premises that you are particularly, have your constituents report to you, then if you put it through the normal members inquiry through our case work, that then gathers us intelligence so that we can go and look at that premises. Yeah. And again, a lot of our intelligence on that under ourselves does come from either schools or the parents as well. So... Suleukam. Councillor Suleukam. Thank you, Chair. I'm looking at the, especially on the paragraph 5.5 and 5.6 is where it says the number of inspection carried out. I'd just like to know what are the impact, I mean, what's the follow-up of these inspection, sorry, of these, the, the warning letters that are being sent. What was the follow-up and what was the outcome? It's, it, we can't really go into the specifics of individual cases because many of the cases, that's why we've not put addresses on there because we can't because they're still being investigated. But generally a warning letter could just be a warning letter or it could be a warning letter and be part of the enforcement action you're seeing in Appendix 3. Um, without going into specifics on it, there are a number that we've got in the pipeline. But again, it depends on the gravity of the breach, um, the number of breaches it's had, um, and, and whether or not there's a case to answer. But we certainly take enforcement action, as you can see, uh, from Appendix 3. Um, we, you know, where we can, we would definitely take enforcement action on these things to ensure that they can, they're complying with the license and acting. If they're not, uh, we'll take the task on that. And again, as I said earlier, they are always followed up. So if the shop has had a warning letter, they will definitely be on the list to be followed up for, for future inspections as well. So that's part of how we will target. It's, it's intelligence from complaints, but also those premises that we've had problems with before and though they will be re-inspected, uh, at the earliest relevant date really. And, um, yeah, as long as the problems continue, we will continue to inspect them and to take appropriate action. Colleagues, are there any more questions to officers? Yes, Councillor Kahn. Uh, thank you, Chair. Uh, my question to, uh, uh, uh, the, uh, presenter is, since the government declared that laughing gas, as my colleague have said, that is class C drugs, uh, what do you think is the use of the laughing gas went up or down? And is there any prosecutions? You, you were ahead of. Thank you. We can't enforce, um, prosecutions to do with laughing gas, um, because now it's been made a class C drug. Um, it is now the police that need to enforce that. What we will do is we haven't found it recently. We have had, um, many, many years ago now, uh, prior to the pandemic, we did find a premises that was selling laughing gas. This is when it was under the Psychedelic Substances Act, uh, 2016. And we subsequently reviewed that license and removed, uh, and they went to the committee and they, with, they revoked that license. So we have done stuff like that. So we have done stuff like that. If we did find, um, premises, uh, selling, uh, laughing gas as a class C drug. Uh, for insulate, for inhalation. Um, then we would be looking, cause it's a criminal offense. So we'd certainly, in the first instance of that, probably either ourselves or our police partners, be looking to put a review in that license premises, because you can't be seen to be having, you know, criminal activity going on in the license premises. So that would be our first instance. Uh, regardless of whether the police were taking enforcement action on that, we probably would put a, a review in side by side, unless our police partners, uh, requested us not to, for reasons for their prosecution, uh, in terms of whether or not the usage has gone up or down, it's probably not for me to speculate on that to be fair. Um, because I, I don't really have the statistics on that. And it's probably something that you'd probably want to speak to the police about, or, or even, uh, the NHS who may have more figures on that kind of stuff with the usage. Yeah. Again, if I can just add to that, we did in the past see large quantities of, uh, quantities of laughing gas. It was mainly the same premises that were selling the listed tobacco as well. We, we, we seized a lot of that. But I think it was an unforeseen consequence of, of reclassifying, uh, nitrous oxide as a, as a, as a, now kind of the drug legislation, as it used to come under psychoactive substances. Because we did have some limited power premises, but now only the police have the power to act on that. So, um, it, it, it tied the law up in that possession of it is now an offence as well. But, unfortunately, I think it took our powers away. So, it is now we would seize them alongside the listed tobacco. But now we have to work alongside the police, and the police have to take the lead on, on, on, on, is it, is, is now a, a, a drug as is cocaine or has the legislation that no one really thought that bit through. Uh, just to add up, uh, councillor. Uh, previously, when we had the power, uh, we did, uh, like now, done an ox operation with the police officers, uh, in the night time. Uh, especially Hackney area and Warping area side. We had a quite good success for them. We have seized a lot. And several ways we have done, uh, survey previously, uh, under late night, uh, late night levy. So, yeah, it was quite good, actually. Like, you know, it was improving. So, since then, we did not, since the power has gone from us. So, let's just punish everything. So, we cannot do anything. Yeah, well, I can assure those discussions do still go on. Can we get people directly through me? Because then it's turning into a conversation rather than the committee meeting. Mr. Royal. Mr. Royal, the floor is yours. Yes. Those conversations do still go on with the police in terms of who should lead on particular premises where we think the issue is more likely to be illicit tobacco and nitrous oxide. So, we do still have those conversations. So, even though we, we've lost our direct powers, we still do very much work alongside the police on that. Thank you. Any more contributions, Mr. Hussain? Nothing. Okay. Councillor Mohamed again. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I want to briefly turn to capacity. So, in the report, I know it says you've lost two staff and there's issues about overtime. So, I want to illustrate that for two points. First, in terms of do you have enough of the capacity that you need within a team to be able to effectively execute some of this work? Because I know in appendix one and two. Because I know in appendix one and two, it lists the letters and the visits. And obviously, there's two areas in particular, Bow East and Spittersfield and Banglatan that kind of keep coming up in the financial year, 23-24 and 24-25. So, do you have enough capacity to be able to analyze some of that and the reasons behind some of that, but also kind of caveat effectively. The work you need. Because again, I know in the report in 2020, I know that you can effectively execute some of this work. Because I know in appendix one and two, it lists the letters and the visits. And obviously, there's two areas in particular, Bow East and Spittersfield and Banglatan that kind of keep coming up in the financial year, 23-24 and 24-25. So, do you have enough capacity to be able to analyze some of that and the reasons behind some of that, but also kind of caveat effectively the work you need? Because again, I know in the report, it talks about issues with people aren't seeking solicitors or agents anymore, which means it's also taking up capacity. So, not only in one side have you lost some capacity, but you're being kind of bogged down with the bureaucratic parts of it, which is, again, easing up the capacity. So, it would be really helpful to understand that in terms of, because I suppose the report only makes an assumption on why, and it might be the cost of living crisis, but have you asked businesses why this is the case to help free up some of that capacity, to do some of that analysis work that I think would be really helpful and really interesting and means you can do some more bread and butter stuff. We haven't asked businesses because we don't really have the capacity to ask those businesses or to do that kind of analysis, unfortunately. Yes, prior to the pandemic, we had a seconded Theo and an officer that was doing our community alcohol partnership scheme and our best bar none scheme, where the funding was withdrawn on that. And you can see the differences with the best bar none scheme because it went from 46 to six premises that now operate best bar none. In terms of have we got enough, I mean, you can always do with more staff. If you have more staff, you can do more things. That's the thing. But it depends on wider implications for the local authority as to where their priorities are, to be honest. We have offices funded through late night levy as well, one office funded through late night levy and we can go out and do these inspections because what we tend to do is we tend to offer it out to other areas of environmental health and training standards. Now, there is in there, as you can see in the report, an indication that there's offices are now not willing to go out as much now because the overtime hasn't changed since, well, since 2016 I think to be honest. I am talking to my seniors about whether or not we can increase that, but that does really depend on the capacity of your budgets as to whether or not you can increase that cost. So there are wider implications. You've got to think about these things in terms of what is the budget for your service, what is the budget for your teams and where are your priorities within your service and your directorate as well and the council in general as to where you want to go with these things. But if you're offering to give me some leverage to get more staff, I'm not going to refuse that offer. More staff you can do more with and as I say in the report, it would certainly free up time for the officers because they are getting bogged down with a lot of things. And I did have a brief conversation with a colleague from Westminster recently about similar issues where you're getting a lot of more people coming in who haven't used an agent or a solicitor to do their applications. So there's more problems with it. And they said they are having similar issues over there. So it seems to be pan London if you're just basing on Westminster only and ourselves. But you could make the assumption that it is across London at least. That's really helpful. And I think, so just the point about Appendix 1, Appendix 2, is there an analysis that you've done on why it's more prevalent or higher numbers in Bow East and Spit and Bang? I mean, I take a guess that Spit and Bang is around the cumulative impact zone area and Bow East is quickly becoming that problem that we've spoken about previously in Hackney Wick area and Fish Island. So is there any analysis that you've done on it would be helpful? Aside from the analysis we did as part of the community of impact policy, no. Because we need to use the police partners to do that and it's quite difficult. And I think they've now lost one of their analysis persons as well. In terms of why it's busy in those areas, they are busy areas. Spitalfields and Banglatown is on the city fringe. It's got a vibrant part of the night time economy there. People often start there and then make their way up to Shoreditch. And we've discussed in various committees about Hackney Wick as well and how that's becoming more of a night time hotspot within the borough. So that's most likely, if you get more licensed premises and you get more clubs, you get more pubs, you will naturally get more complaints. And that's what would draw us into those areas. Because as we get complaints in, what we do is we put it on our enforcement rota and that's what builds those pictures up. Are there any more questions? Any councillors? Thank you so much. I just want to echo from councillor Kobir Ahmed about the e-cigarette licensing. One thing I don't understand, you know, how they run or exercise such this activity. We have seen that so many, you know, many, many of the shops in Tower Hamlet. So do they come, you know, for the, does it come with the, you know, or grant from the council or the local authority or how they run? I just, I just don't, you know, I don't know how they run. Do you like take the, you know, they, they come to the, for the licensing authority or they just? Thank you. E-cigarettes isn't, they're not licensed. There's, there's no licensing regime for them. There's no licensing regime for tobacco either. So it would only come to our attention if there were problems. But as Sean has already highlighted, there are operations that we run with tobacco and vapes, which are funded through for public health as well. And we do a number of those projects every year, but it's, it depends whether it's licensed or not. It depends. So if you want to know a bit more about that, it's probably better to take it outside this committee because it doesn't quite always stretch into licensing. And I'm conscious that we want to spend our time on licensing rather than straying into sort of tobacco and vapes. But, you know, it's something we could, we could discuss afterwards if you wanted to. I think this is sort of e-cigarettes and tobacco really more trading standards, aren't they? About how they're displayed on that. I think there is some, if I remember rightly, there is a private member's bill going through Parliament at the moment that is proposing the licensing of tobacco, obviously, whether that actually happens or not. Because I think the central government is starting to realise it is actually very, very problematic and has been for years. So that may well be that in the not too distant future, depending on how these things play out in Parliament, that you might have, you might end up with some sort of licensing function. And that may be the same for vapes. I mean, there's already coming in in June, they're cracking down on single use vapes, for example. So there's a lot more going on in the, I suppose, behind the scenes about these sorts of issues. And they do quite often tie in, although they're not strictly licensing, they do frequently tie in with licensed premises. It's just the nature of the beast, I suspect. Thank you. Are there any further questions from councillors of anybody? Thank you very much. In that case, the meeting is now formally closed. May I thank members again and thank officers for your very, very comprehensive reports. Thank you, Chair.