Decision details

Application for a review of a premises license - Dulce Pecado UK Ltd, 263 High Road, London, N15 4RR

 

The Licensing Sub-Committee (“the LSC”) carefully considered the above application.

 

In considering the application, the LSC took account of the Licensing Act 2003 (“the Act”), the Revised Guidance issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003 in February 2025 (“the section 182 guidance”), the Haringey Statement of Licensing Policy 2021-2026, the report pack, and representations from the applicant and objectors.

 

Having considered the application and heard from all the parties, the LSC decided to MODIFY THE CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE, including the operating hours.

 

Reasons

 

Written representations received

The LSC received the following evidence:

1. A report from the Licensing Team Leader, Daliah Barrett.
2. The application dated 5 July 2026 from Izabela Slowikowska.
3. Representations in support of the application from local residents.
4. Representations in support of the application from the Noise, Nuisance & Licensing Enforcement team.
5. Written representations in response from the license holder, including proposed further and modified license conditions.

 

Oral representations received

The LSC heard from:

1. Izabela Slowikowska, the applicant.
2. Sabrina de Mata, and Victoria Stewart speaking on behalf of Malgorzata Eicholc, local residents supporting the application.
3. Craig Bellringer, Noise, Nusiance & Licensing Enforcement team, supporting the application.
4. Kevin Everett, licensing agent, and Christopher Zawani and Andreas Castro, on behalf of the license holder.

 

While not seeking to record everything said during the course of the hearing, the LSC noted and placed reliance on the following comments in particular.

 

Ms Slowikowska told the LSC:

Ø  She and her husband are the residents most affected by noise from the premises as they live directly above.

Ø  The incident at the end of June 2026 was not the beginning, it was the final straw. There have been issues for a long time, but under previous managers they have always managed to eventually reach a solution.

Ø  When the warm weather began, they began having issues with the club’s customers congregating outside and being noisy. They tried to raise this with the venue, without success.

Ø  They have not had any communication from the venue since they initiated this review.

Ø  She wants to be fair, and notes there is occasional improvement, but it is not consistent. For example, security do try to control the customers outside and ensure they don’t congregate, but the night before this hearing she also observed them having a loud argument with a customer, and later sitting and chatting with customers.

 

Ms Stewart on behalf of Ms Eicholc told the LSC:

Ø  The incident on the weekend of 27 and 28 June directly affected her business. The pavement was taken up by people and equipment to such a degree that customers could not get in. She asked for the music to be turned down but was ignored. The premises have now acknowledged this was a mistake, but it is of great concern to her that the people holding the license did not realise this to begin with.

Ø  That weekend is not her only complaint. For some time, there have been problems at night with people throwing beer bottles around and urinating outside. She regularly has to clear up the area herself before she opens her shop.

Ø  After she submitted her complaint, a person connected with the premises came to her shop and accused her of getting neighbours to make complaints. She regarded the incident as threatening and not appropriate.

 

Ms de Mata told the LSC:

Ø  She is a business owner herself and understands the challenges which can come with running a business in a residential area. But she has suffered too many issues for too long.

Ø  She simply cannot sleep properly at the moment. Issues are worse on days when there are events at White Hard Lane, or on Fridays and Saturdays (though not just on those days). It’s understandable that the venue want to capitalise on those, but they have to work within the community.

Ø  She has to have a padlock on her door because she does not feel safe. There are drunk people urinating outside.

Ø  From an outsider’s perspective, it seems to her there is no management of anything. She has provided evidence of a DJ being outside at 2am (though the LSC also had in the pack before it a letter dated 6 July 2026 from ASL Legal & Property Group, on behalf of local residents, which said the DJ had continued until 4am), and a fight taking place outside.

Ø  The night before this hearing, there had been someone aggressively threatening people in Spanish, and it took a bouncer 20-25 minutes to do anything.

Ø  Most of the conditions now being proposed by the venue are unlikely to solve the issues. People who are arriving already intoxicated are harder to control, and even ones who are refused entry simply cause issues outside.

Ø  There can be further issues when rubbish is collected at 2am-3am and glass bottles are being thrown into a truck.

Ø  She just wants to be safe and to be able to sleep.

 

Mr Bellringer told the LSC:

Ø  Since April 2026, his team have received over 15 reports of loud music at the property. Most of the reports have related to late night or early morning.

Ø  On 28 June, his team witnessed about 60 people congregating outside, with dancing on the highway and alcohol being sold from a bar. There was significant disturbance, and some disruption to an event at the White Hart Lane stadium. An abatement notice was issued.

Ø  The evidence shows a patter of issues at late night and early morning. The late opening times are the reason for this. Those times are not consistent with the nature of the area. They are therefore asking for a reduction in opening hours. This is necessary to prevent public nuisance. (This request was then echoed by Ms Slowikowska, Ms Eicholc, and Ms de Mata in response to questions from the LSC.)

 

Mr Everett, Mr Zawani, and Mr Castro told the LSC (for simplicity, this summary does not distinguish between the three speakers save where necessary for clarity):

Ø  They sincerely apologise for the issues with the event on 27 and 28 June 2026, which they accept should not have happened.

Ø  Any action taken by the LSC should be proportionate to the issues which are actually present.

Ø  The current license does permit alcohol service to 3am and opening hours to 4am, so the fact this happens is not a breach.

Ø  They concur that the rubbish collection is very noisy, and will be arranging to change the time of it. That change will be made immediately.

Ø  Not all of the issues outside the premises are their responsibility. There is a group of individuals who gather there, play music from speakers, and deal drugs. Those are not patrons of the venue, and although they do try and move these people on to the extent they can and recognise the issues they may be causing, the venue should not be blamed for that.

Ø  They have offered some additional conditions which they believe will address many of the concerns.

o   Among other things, they will be writing to residents to open communication and make available a contact phone number for residents to report any issues, at any time.

o   The proposal for 2 security staff on event days should be read as additional to the existing 2, so a total of 4.

Ø  The venue has been operating for more than 20 years in one form or another, and is an important space for the Latin community, which should be borne in mind. There is at least one other venue nearby which operates till 5am.

Ø  It was Mr Castro who had visited Ms Eicholc’s shop. He did not threaten her; she may have seen it that way, but it was in no way his intention. One of the properties in the building is owned and rented by them to Spanish-speaking tenants, who had told them that Ms Eicholc was regularly pressuring them to file reports about the noise, and so he had wanted to go and ask why. He felt that her real problem was perceived competition with her own business, but hers was completely different and he did not think they were actually in competition.

Ø  On communication:

o   They had missed emails from the Noise & Nuisance team before the weekend of the 27^th, because of having emails go to a combined account dealing with other businesses too. They propose to have a dedicated one for this business in future, to make it easier to spot these. They had not replied to the email afterwards because they had seen it as a warning, not an invitation to reach out and discuss, so had not realised they could.

o   They did not engage with the Council following the review because, again, they had not realised they could. They had immediately engaged Mr Everett to discuss how they could improve their operations.

o   They had drafted a letter apologising to residents which they intend to hand to those who they can, and leave at the doors of anyone they cannot.

Ø  It would be proportionate to allow them some time to put in place the various steps they were proposing, rather than immediately reducing operating hours.

 

Evaluation

The LSC reminded itself that it is required by section 4 of the Act to exercise its functions with a view to promoting the licensing objectives:

(a)  the prevention of crime and disorder;

(b)  public safety;

(c)  the prevention of public nuisance; and

(d)  the protection of children from harm.

 

The LSC was of the view that the evidence it had read and heard clearly established that the operating of the premises was undermining the prevention of public nuisance. The various representations showed significant and valid concerns, and the residents were persuasive. The license holder was clearly making some attempts to address these, and the LSC accepted they were sincere in this (not least in volunteering further conditions), but the issues were too significant and more had to be done.

 

 It did not seem that the license holder was disputing that there was significant noise, disturbing the sleep of local residents, through the late night and early morning. Although they had argued that not all of that could be lain at their doorstep, and the LSC bore in mind that some of the residents had in turn acknowledged that there may be people congregating who were not linked to the venue, that did not undermine the clear evidence linking patrons and security staff of the venue – and rubbish collections – to the noise. Realistically, it was common ground that there were issues, and the question was what steps were appropriate to mitigate those.

 

Whilst some of what the LSC had heard could potentially fall under crime and disorder, the Police had not chosen to make representations on this review and there was no evidence before the LSC to confirm crimes were being committed that were linked to the venue. The LSC did not hear anything to lead it to consider that the safety of members of the public using the premises was being undermined. Although some of the affected residents may have children, this by itself did not lead the LSC to consider that the objective of protection of children from harm was being undermined; on the facts, this was just another aspect of the public nuisance rather than a free-standing concern.

The appropriate action

 

For all of the above reasons, the LSC determined it appropriate to exercise its statutory powers under section 52(4) of the Act so as to promote the licensing objectives. 

 

In deciding which of the powers available to it was appropriate to use, the LSC followed paras.11.20-22 of the section 182 guidance by asking what the cause of the concerns was. It took the view that this was the late opening hours, which were unusual for a venue of this kind in a location of this kind.

The LSC carefully considered all of the powers available to it and which would be proportionate. Whilst it was appropriate to take some action, this was not a case where dramatic action was required; indeed, the applicant and supporters had not suggested anything more drastic than modifying the conditions. It was sufficient to impose appropriate modifications.

 

To begin with, the LSC considered the following modifications to be proportionate:

 

1. The additional conditions proposed by the Noise, Nuisance and Licensing Enforcement team, which were essentially standard and which the license holder had not taken issue with.
2. In addition, a further condition in the following terms: “A Noise Management Plan shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Noise and Nuisance Team. The plan shall include details relating to the control of noise from patrons entering and leaving the premises as well as controls to ensure that noise from use and activities within the premises does not cause nuisance to neighbours.”
3. The license holder had submitted some proposed additional conditions. The LSC concurred that these would assist and accepted these, with paragraph 6 thereof modified for the sake of clarity to read “A minimum of two additional SIA licensed door supervisors…”, in line with the clarification offered during the hearing.

 

The LSC then asked itself whether these modifications were sufficient, or whether a change to the operating hour was also necessary. On balance, the answer was “yes”, essentially for the reasons put forward by the Noise & Nuisance team: the recurring issues were clearly linked to late night and early morning, so by far the most reliable way to uphold the objective of preventing public nuisance was to simply change the operating hours. Whilst the other modifications would also assist, the LSC did not have confidence that those steps by themselves would be sufficient.

 

The LSC anxiously considered what was proportionate, weighing the interests of the residents against the legitimate interests of the business. It felt that the right way to strike the balance was to change the operating hours to:

Sunday to Thursday: Alcohol to be served until 12:00am, premises to close by 1:00am

 

Friday and Saturday: Alcohol to be served until 1:00am, premises to close by 2:00am

 

It was not necessary to make separate provision is made for days when there are events at White Hart Lane. The premises would be at liberty to apply for a TEN if so advised.

For the avoidance of doubt, the LSC reminded itself that it had the power to make any modification temporary, for a period of up to three months, but decided not to do so. The license holder would be at liberty to apply for the hours to be extended again in future (subject to any objections people may raise at that time), but this should not be automatic: the license holder should bear the burden of taking that step if & when they can satisfy the LSC that the issues have been resolved, rather than it being automatic.

 

Accordingly, the LSC resolved to grant the application for a review by modifying the license conditions, in the terms set out above.

 

Appeal rights

 

This decision is open to appeal to the Magistrates Court within the period of 21 days, beginning on the day upon which the appellant is notified of the decision. This decision does not take effect until the end of that period, or, in the event that an appeal has been brought, until that appeal is either finally determined or abandoned.