FOR 15 years up to 2010 I was a magistrate in London and for most of those years a panel of justices were responsible for licensing matters. Local magistrates are very familiar with the area in which they sit judicially and were particularly aware of local sensitivities and trouble hot spots.
When trouble occurs on a Saturday night very often someone will be in court on Monday morning.
I doubt whether local councillors are all quite so directly aware.
In these times of licensed premises frequently being used for antisocial and increasingly violent behaviour, this would seem to me to militate on favour of licensing responsibilities being returned to the Magistrates Court Service simply because they are better equipped to deal with them.
COLIN PIPE, Durley Gardens, Bournemouth
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