STEWART’S SUPERMARKETS LTD Applicant, CAVAN AND OTHERS Objectors.

Refusal of an off-licence for Unit 8, Connswater Shopping Centre, Bloomfield Avenue, Belfast.

Application for a grant – Licensing Act (Northern Ireland) 1971, section 3(1)(b) and section 84(1).

“Owners” of the premises as defined by section 84(1) of the Act considered. It was argued that as the developer of the shopping centre was liable for a small head-rent in respect of lands including both the shopping centre and a small additional area, both the developer and the applicant were in receipt of the rack rent and hence owners of the property as defined by section 84(1). Only the developer was named as owner of the premises in the notice of application. The notice did not comply with Schedule 2, paragraph 2 and so the application should be refused.

Held.

Having considered Newman -v- Dorrington Developments Ltd [1975] 3 AER 928, the rent paid by the applicants was the rack-rent of Unit 8 and therefore the developer was the sole owner of the premises and the notice complied with the statutory requirements.

Subsisting licence-Licensing Act (Northern Ireland) 1971, section 5(2)(c)(ii), section 11(3), section 14, Schedule 2, paragraph 2(a)(ii) and Schedule 4, paragraph 5(b).

Although the licence to be surrendered as a subsisting licence purported to have been renewed at the previous licensing sessions under section 11 (a renewal which would have been invalid under that section) the renewal could have been validly made under section 14. There was no reason to support that the licensee’s solicitors did not rely on section 14 when the licence was renewed and the subsisting licence was valid.

Inadequacy – the court being satisfied that the population was decreasing and the existing off-licences in the vicinity had spare capacity, the application was dismissed.

Judge Pringle QC – Belfast Recorder’s Court – 14/5/1984.

[Affirmed on appeal where only the inadequacy point was considered, see STEWART’S SUPERMARKETS LTD -v- STERRIT and others. HC [1985] NI 159, [1985] 5 NIJB 51 (Hutton J.)]