Sheffield Chinese restaurant takeaway allowed to open until 3am for student snacks

Sheffield City Council’s licensing sub-committee yesterday (April 23) decided that Chong Qing restaurant on Glossop Road can open until 3am daily for takeaways that can be ordered in person only – no orders or deliveries by online services will be permitted.

The proposal was called a “Trojan horse” by objector Peter Sephton, chair of city centre residents’ association Changing Sheffield. He said it risked extending the city’s late-night economy zone further along West Street-Glossop Road as far as the inner ring road.

The restaurant applied to vary its licence from 11pm to 3pm “to accommodate new BBQ snack options for Chinese students who enjoy late-night snacks, which the premises operators have received many requests for”, licensing officer Jayne Gough said.

Mr Sephton said: “We see this seemingly innocuous application as a Trojan horse with ramifications for residents in the city centre area. It is a large and growing community, currently 27,000, which is soon going to be 35,000.”

He said that the community deserves some protection from noise and disturbance and that the applicant’s business lies just beyond a council-designated city centre night-time quiet area boundary, where late-night opening is restricted.

Battle

He said: “For residents of the city centre this is D Day with D standing for defend.”

Mr Sephton asked: “Is all the city centre to become a 24-hour economy zone or can its residents get a good night’s sleep? It seems the battle may start here this morning.”

He said that the group fully accepts that West Street is part of the night-time economy but they don’t want to see it expanding along Glossop Road as well.

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Objector Mark Booth, who said he has lived at West One in the city centre for almost 21 years, said that there has recently been a significant rise in noise nuisance from bars, takeaways and restaurants in the city centre. He has made a number of complaints.

He mentioned issues with Grappa and Beju, which are both on Glossop Road, and said he has made complaints about several other venues. Problems include noisy customers gathering outside venues, delivery drivers congregating and Supertrams sounding their horns loudly when their route is blocked by badly-parked cars.

“We feel as residents we are left to deal with this problem,” said Mr Booth. He said there were few police foot patrols in the area and calling 101 never resulted in a response on the same evening.

Restrictions

Mr Booth worried that the restaurant would attract people who have been drinking to pick up takeaways.

Wenjin Wang, representing applicant Tianhui Zhuo, said online delivery services would be shut off after the cut-off time. “You have to walk in the shop and order from the counter. We cook the food and only customers can take it away from the shop.”

She said that music in the restaurant stops around 8-9pm and was happy for the licence to have any anti-noise restrictions placed on it.

Ms Wang said that the restaurant’s clientele are mainly people from the city’s Chinese community who generally don’t drink alcohol with their food.

Anyone who appeared to be drunk when they entered to order a takeaway would be refused service. She said staff always reminded customers to leave quietly.