Cafe next to alcohol rehab centre gets late license

A café situated just metres from an alcohol rehabilitation centre has been given permission to serve alcohol from 10am to midnight, seven days a week.

Brighton cafe Metropolis can now serve alcohol from 10am to midnight every day despite being just yards from an alcohol rehabilitation centre

The decision to grant an alcohol license to Metropolis in Preston Road, Brighton, was met with fierce objection from managers of the nearby treatment centre, which houses up to 26 men and women all in the early stages of alcohol recovery.

Staff at the Brighton Housing Trust (BHT) Recovery Project argued it would undermine their work, but members of the Brighton and Hove City Council licensing committee said it had no choice but to grant the application at a town hall meeting yesterday.

According to The Argus Brian Sudway, manager of Recovery Centre BHT, said: “I have spoken with some of our residents and they feel very strongly that this would be extremely counterproductive to their desire to establish and maintain a recovery focus.”

He also added the “associated sights and sounds” would be constantly visible and audible to clients and would “seriously undermine the very sensitive work being done to help people who have just started on the path to abstinence-based recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs”.

Nick Hurst, of Preston Road, Brighton, was one of three other people who also opposed the application submitted by cafe owner Hasan Tanc.

Writing to Brighton and Hove City Council, he said: “As a neighbour, I have enjoyed peace and quiet for the last 22 years until six months ago when Mr Tanc acquired the premises during which time I have been kept awake on at least three occasions.”

After approving the application Councillor Dee Simson, chairman of the council’s licensing panel, said there was nothing in the policy that gave grounds to refuse it.

“It was a really difficult one – sometimes your heart tells you one thing but your head says another,” she added.

In recent news it emerged former Coronation Street actor Kevin Kennedy, famous for playing the character “Curly” Watts in the iconic UK soap, announced he is planning to open a new “dry bar” in Brighton to help recovering alcoholics.