SALE of alcohol in Bournemouth’s pubs and clubs could be restricted if new laws are adopted in the town.

Licensees could be forced to stop selling booze at a certain time if Early Morning Restriction Orders (Emros) are introduced.

Emros are currently being considered alongside the new Late Night Levy which could force those open after midnight to pay towards the cost of policing the night-time economy.

A series of private meetings is under way involving councillors, council officers, police, licensees, hoteliers and other interested parties.

Bournemouth council’s licensing manager Steve Wright, inset, told the Daily Echo the new powers have been available since October last year and are being considered by a number of local authorities. He stressed nothing had yet been decided.

He said Emros can only be introduced if they are deemed necessary and proportionate and said there must be evidence to introduce them.

The Emro means that the council could order any licensed prem-ises to stop selling alcohol between certain times at night, although the club or bar would still be able to stay open.

If the order is breached, it would be considered an offence of Section 136 of the Licensing Act 2003, which carries with it the possibility of a £20,000 fine or a six-month prison sentence.

Mr Wright said: “It would depend on the crime statistics according to a particular time of the early morning.

“With an Emro, a council could control the hours in a given area between midnight and 6am. It’s quite a broad timescale. If a council looks at a particular street and says: ‘We’ve not got much crime from midnight to 2.30am, but it gets worse after that’, then a council could make the order starting from 2.30am.”

He said a number of factors would need to be taken into account, including Bourne-mouth’s tourism industry.

“I don’t think the town is a bad town – you’ve only got to travel to the majority of cities and even other seaside towns to see the difference,” he said.

“It’s a very emotive issue that you may be telling the traders to stop their business, and we certainly aren’t anywhere near that yet.”

If the council decides to adopt the Emro, a 42-day public consultation will take place.

Bournemouth’s night-time businesses have taken a blow this year with the closure of three of the town’s biggest clubs.

Bliss and Chilli White in St Peter’s Road, both part of the Yellowhammer Bars estate, closed their doors without warning in January.

V Club’s licence was revoked in early March following a knife attack in the Exeter Road premises.
However, on Wednesday, a notice of application for new premises was received in V’s name.

The notice requests the permission of the council for the sale of alcohol from Monday to Sunday, 10am until 3am, and for additional hours on New Year’s Eve.