New opening hours: Mayor Jason Perry promised that the café in Wandle Park would re-open in 2023. His council was initially demanding at least £10,000 pa rent for the venue
‘Vertical drinking’ to be banned in park’s re-opened venue, which is located in a newly extended no-alcohol zone, as council grants licence to its new tenants. By our Town Hall reporter, SANDRA STEAD
Croydon Council has managed to grant a licence to sell alcohol to a café in a public park which is situated in Mayor Jason Perry’s recently extended Public Space Protection Order zones – where even holding an open can of lager in public is deemed to be an offence punishable by a hefty, on-the-spot fine.
The council-owned Wandle Park Café is due to re-open next month under new management – almost three years later than had been promised by Croydon’s failed Mayor.
The venue was built as part of the £3.5million renovations of the park carried out 12 years ago, but it has been closed since the first covid lockdown in 2020. The café provides the park’s only public toilets, but they have been unavailable for use since the building was closed.
Steep rent: leasing out the Wandle Park caff has been a long process for the cash-strapped council
When Mayor Perry’s council first advertised the venue for rent for budding entrepreneurs, they were seeking at least £10,000 per year. And the tenants have to open, maintain and clean the park loos. So the fact that the licensing authority – Croydon Council – granted their new tenants a licence probably ought not come as a surprise.
Licences to sell booze are rarely granted to tea rooms and cafés in public parks, for a series of often obvious reasons regarding security, public order and child protection.
Wandle Park, even before the closure of its café, had earned a reputation as a place where petty crime and drug deals take place, and where street drinkers congregate.
The inclusion of Wandle Park in Mayor Perry’s extended PSPO was intended to deter street drinkers. And now Mayor Perry’s council has granted a licence to sell booze in the park seven days a week.
Convincing: Glen Patnelli made a strong case to allow the Wandle Park Caff to be licensed
The licence was granted with a series of special conditions following a meeting of the council’s licensing sub-committee held earlier this month. Only three elected councillors bothered to show up for the meeting. There were no apologies for absence. And one of those who did log in for the virtual meeting, Margaret Bird, only spoke to say her name at the introductions.
None of those who had lodged objections to the licensing application attended the meeting, which was staged on a weekday morning, so ruling out anyone who might have to work for a living.
The application was made on behalf of Joal Miez Holdings Ltd, whose sole director, Glen Patnelli, spoke at length, and quite convincingly, at the meeting.
“We are not here to serve alcohol to those who you find hanging around in the park who buy cheap drink from the corner shop and then come to the park to consume it,” he said.
Michael Goddard, the council’s head of environmental health, trading atandards and licensing, spoke at some length to explain the laws and regulations around the 2003 Licensing Act and its four objectives: the prevention of crime and disorder, the prevention of public nuisance, protecting public safety and the protection of children.
Goddard explained how, after discussions with the police and the applicant, the licensing application had been changed in a number of respects, in particular reducing the operating hours to 10am to 6pm, rather than until 11pm each night.
Goddard was unable to answer questions from the meeting chair, Councillor Patsy Cummings, about whether Wandle Park is closed at night (it isn’t), or how well the park is lit after dark (hardly at all).
In the zone: Wandle Park is now within Mayor Perry’s town centre PSPO, which was extended in September
Patnelli explained that the café would be providing some lighting in the park, and would also have CCTV installed for the first time. The police, he suggested, are considering night-time drive-through patrols in the park.
The café, Patnelli said (consistently pronouncing it “caff”), was to become a community space, providing workshops and events. He then explained that he has no budget to stage any such events.
He explained how his company has for several years provided children’s school holiday activities, through an operation called The Science of Sound. He suggested that such activities would help to deter anti-social behaviour.
There was no mention during the licensing committee meeting – by the council’s licensing manager, by the councillors and certainly not by the applicant – of Wandle Park being inside a PSPO no booze zone (although other bars and pubs within the PSPO have to manage the no-off-the-premises rule, too).
Patnelli was adamant that the café would not sell cans or bottles of booze for consumption off the premises (he’d hardly want his customers to be hit with 60 quid PSPO fines, would he?). He perhaps contradicted himself later by expressing the hope that in the warmer months of the year, there might be seating and tables outside the café, which would be separated from the park by planters. Which would make all the difference…
The licensing conditions require that alcohol can only be sold by the Wandle Park Caff with a meal. The third councillor present, Jess Hammersley-Rich, explored what might be called “the Scotch Egg Rule”: what constituted a meal?
Patnelli said, quite firmly, that no one would be able to order two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. A burger and a beer would be fine, he said. A burger and six beers, less so. He did not elaborate on how his staff might practically monitor such differentials.
There would be no spirits sold, and no beer taps on the café counters.
And there would be a strict ban at the café on what Patnelli called “vertical drinking”. Patnelli explained that meant no one would be allowed to drink standing up.
No one asked whether horizontal drinking would be allowed.
Only time will tell.
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It was splendid to have wine whilst watching a performance of Alice performed at the Bandstand in Wandle Park two summers ago. Now this would be an offence? Can this Council make Croydon any more unwelcoming?