A BAR owner has failed in his bid to get £85,000 from Bournemouth council following a prolonged licensing row.

Shahab Hashtroudi tried to get his legal costs reimbursed after winning a two-and-a-half year battle with the council to get permission to open a new bar and nightclub in Holdenhurst Road.

He said he was “very disappointed” to have his application turned down and maintained the council was unfair in the way it initially rejected his application for the Orange Rooms.

But Cllr Dave Smith, Bournemouth’s cabinet member for planning and environment, hit out at the magistrates who overturned the licensing board’s decision and granted Mr Hashtroudi permission to open a nightspot on the site of the redundant Empire Club.

He has written to Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns, expressing his anger and concern that local councils can be overruled.

“This case highlights just how meaningless localism is,” he wrote.

“The council has a properly constituted Licensing Board which has undergone rigorous training in dealing with licensing matters. They are all local people who understand the problems this town faces and make decisions according to the policies and the facts placed before them.

“In contrast we have three unelected magistrates who clearly do not understand the problems this town faces and, judging by my observations when giving evidence, clearly had no concept of what a Cumulative Impact Policy was.

“I would query if they have had any particular training in dealing with licensing matters.”

He also questioned whether the magistrates were local and said: “What right have people who do not even live in our town to make such decisions?”

But Mr Hashtroudi told the Echo: “I don’t think we got a fair hearing from the council.

“They held a hearing that lasted just two hours and they had a blanket policy to say no.

“When we went to the magistrates court, the hearing was for three days and they had all the evidence they needed. They went through all the details and made the decision accordingly.”