Working with Alex Sobel's office we held a meeting with Loungers, who are the premises licence applicants for the proposed new restaurant where Wilkos/Poundland was.
Here are some updates following the meeting.
It's clear from the other restaurants run by this company that they are not planning to run it as a bar. All drinking by default would be sat at a table, with table-service only (no bar).
We put the conditions we've already proposed to them, which they seemed broadly happy with - although this is ultimately the decision of the Licensing Committee that reviews their application.
We talked through the Otley Run in detail with the company and their solicitor. It's really important that they understand the context they'd be operating in and think about how they can prevent problems.
We talked through a number of other things they could do to ensure this is a good addition to Headingley:
No drinking at their outdoors tables without food
A general 'No Otley Run' condition - more difficult to enforce than the specific conditions we've proposed, but if added as an additional catch-all it would make it easier to call the Licence into review if there were problems
No advertisement of drinks-only offers (e.g. "2-for-1 cocktails")
They will come back to us with some proposed conditions of their own. To be clear, we have already made our own submission asking for various extra conditions - as we did with Residence and Catch - but it will be positive if the company agrees to these ahead of the committee meeting.
We'll keep you updated on this and please encourage local friends and family to sign up to be kept up to date too.
We can't dictate the kind of business that moves in there - some of us may prefer something similar to Wilkos for example - so we can only work proactively to shape the conditions for any organisation that lets the space and moves in.
In general, they are aiming at an 'accessible' dining experience - serving Tapas, brunch, burgers and so on - and so our aim is to help ensure that's what we get!