Sheffield city centre shop can open and sell booze 24/7 despite councillors’ fears

Members of the council’s licensing sub-committee today (January 22) have heard about an application made by Nalla’s Convenience Store off Church Street.

The applicant proposed to change the shop’s opening times to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and sell alcohol all the time.

However, City ward councillors objected to the plans, citing the risks of potential anti-social behaviour in the area, among other matters.

During the process, Cllr Ruth Mersereau (City, The Green Party) “lodged a formal objection” as they would have liked to see “a prohibition on sales of alcohol after 11pm and before 8am”.

In an email, Cllr Mersereau said: “This is to ensure consistency with independent shops that have recently agreed to an 8am start and in view of the undoubted public health risks of uncontrolled drinking.

“Allowing early morning alcohol sales also jeopardises the concerted work being done by many local agencies to mitigate the effects of aggressive and intimidating behaviour by people under the influence of alcohol.

“The premises is in City ward which has 83 per cent higher alcohol attributable deaths than Sheffield as a whole and therefore any measures which make alcohol more affordable and available in the area should be discouraged.”

At the meeting, Cllr Martin Phipps (City, The Green Party) said the current licence allows the shop to sell alcohol almost “all the day barring the night and early morning”.

He said they were most concerned about those early hours because of the potential of selling alcohol to vulnerable people feeling anti-social behaviour.

The representative of the applicant said there were a number of shops with licences that allowed them to sell alcohol for 24 hours in a five-minute walk from the Nalla’s.

The applicant stated that alcohol was an important part of their business but they were a convenience store first.

After a lengthy deliberation, the application was approved.