A restaurant’s application to extend the opening hours until 3am seven days a week has been objected to by residents, and is set to be discussed tomorrow by Sheffield councillors.
According to a council document, the application was filed by the Chong Qing restaurant on Glossop Road.
The restaurant hopes to extend the hours for the provision of Late Night Refreshments to 3am, 7 days a week to accommodate new barbecue snack options for “Chinese students who enjoy late night snacks”.
The residents’ association, Changing Sheff, along with local resident Mark Booth has raised objections to the restaurants’ application.
Peter Sephton, chair of Changing Sheff, emphasised that the area behind the fronted food outlets on Glossop Road is predominantly residential and is concerned that food collection and late night economy might cause “disturbance for people living locally”.
He said that if the application was to be approved, it would set a precedent for others to follow and could extend the late night economy and its drinking culture into a residential area.
“If all restaurants ask for 3am with alcohol and the Licensing Committee accepts, the residential area will change into an extension of West Street and all the drunken revelry – and attempted murders – that brings with it.”
West One, one of the residential buildings located near the restaurant.
In the past, applications for early morning closing by other restaurants in the area, for example Wetherspoons Swim Inn, were unsuccessful on the basis of the area being primarily residential.
Mr Sephton said: “We hope the Licensing Committee members will agree that this is an unnecessary expansion of the West Street night-time economy that, if granted, would lead other premises in the vicinity to use it as a lever to apply for through-the-night opening times, thus adversely changing the residential conditions along Glossop Road under which people came to live in the area.“
The application will be discussed tomorrow, Tuesday April 23, at the Licensing Sub-Committee at 10am.
