‘Devolve licensing powers’: Lobby group holds first meeting in Limerick

POWERS to award late licences to nightclubs in Limerick should be devolved to the local authority, a meeting in the city has heard.

More than 50 people were at the Commercial Bar in Catherine Street for the first meeting in Limerick of the Give us the Night lobby, a new movement aiming to promote staggered opening hours for night spots in response to changing consumer demands.

The suggestion was made by the co-founder of Give us the Night Robbie Kitt, who thinks Ireland should fall in line with the rest of Europe instead of leaving it to the national government to extend licensing hours.

The organisation shares a belief that extending opening hours will create jobs and also allow business owners and the public a flexibility not currently afforded to them.​

Staggered opening hours, they argue, will also provide some much needed relief to other late night industries such as fast food outlet operators as well as cab drivers.

Sunil Sharpe, who co-founded the movement, which has held a number of meetings across the country, added: “I think we need to challenge the accusations that if we did extend opening hours, everything would go to pot, that society would disintegrate. If you extend the opening hours to 4am in Limerick over the next few months and let it be, I’d be willing to bet there would not be a problem.”

However, changing opening hours can be a challenge - a local venue wishing to do so, needs to apply for a Special Exemption Order.​

If they secure this, and see off challenges from rival publicans and the Vintners Federation of Ireland, it will then cost them €410 a night – or €107,000 a year if they want to open five nights a week, excluding legal costs.​

These hefty prices are a large reason for the dramatic decrease in the number of SEOs granted by the District Court in recent years, with just 37,000 such orders given last year, down 60% in a decade.

Mr Sharpe said there needs to be local lobbies in each city, having already held Give us the Night meetings across Ireland.

“We want something which will set a precedent for the rest of the country. Then it will become easier for places like Limerick to say we want a bit of this too. It’s about offering more choice. Without that, without modernisation of our licensing laws, we are going to see more businesses close and more jobs lost, and even more generic programming for nightlife,” he told the meeting.

Fionn Coughlan, Corbally, said Limerick’s troubled past could count against it when nightclub owners are seeking extended licences.

“There are people in the government and the public who think if we extended opening hours, these problems might come back. That’s why we need to convey our message in a way which is reassuring,” he added.