Plans to allow a Wirral restaurant to open until midnight have “scared the life” out of one of its neighbours.
Fit Grill, on Village Road in Oxton, is a restaurant which markets itself on the healthiness of its food.
It currently has a licence to open from 8am until 10pm each day, but it now wants to extend the opening hours until midnight, with alcohol to be served until 11pm.
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The restaurant’s owner, Darren Robinson, also wanted to remove a condition on the licence which said that alcohol can only be served with food, allowing people to visit the restaurant purely to drink.
This request worried some of the restaurant’s neighbours, who attended today’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Licensing Panel, set up to consider Mr Robinson’s plans.
Mr McAdam, who did not give his first name, said he lived directly opposite Fit Grill and the idea of groups of people drinking outdoors on warm evenings so close to his home “scares the life out of me”.
He feared allowing people to drink without eating until midnight would create more noise, more litter and more empty bottles and that Oxton had enough licensed premises as it was.
Fellow neighbour Karen Allen worried that Fit Grill would become primarily a drinking place, rather than an eating place.
Ms Allen is the primary carer for her mother, who is disabled and has dementia, and she was worried that the plans would create late night noise and disruption.
Ms Allen added that if her mother was forced to move due to this she would “lose everything”.
But Mr Robinson sought to ease the concerns raised, saying that his business would still be a restaurant rather than a bar.
He added that around 80% of the custom at Fit Grill will be food, with the other 20% being alcohol and that large groups of people looking to drink and not eat would not be allowed in.
On Mr McAdam’s point about outdoor drinking, Mr Robinson agreed that this would 'scare the life out of him' as well, because it would discourage families from coming to eat at the restaurant.
He suggested it was something he will seek to prevent happening.
Mr Robinson said the reason he wanted the licence changed was to recoup money lost during the pandemic and that he has had to turn people away in the past if they just wanted a drink.
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A similar explanation was given on the later opening times requested, with Mr Robinson saying some people want to eat later than the current licence allows.
But he was insistent that the business will continue to be a restaurant first and foremost and the application was simply to help improve that offer to the public.
The panel will make its decision on the application within five working days.
