Newbury pub remains closed

Despite its one month licence suspension lapsing, the Purple Lounge has not yet re-opened

A NEWBURY town centre pub that had its licence suspended for one month is still closed - despite the period of suspension lapsing.

The Purple Lounge in Bartholomew Street was the subject of a licensing review in March after failing test purchases and serving persons under the age of 18 on two separate occasions in November and January, without asking for photo identification.

Two other incidents were discussed as part of the hearing, including when a young girl aged 15 was found to be intoxicated outside the pub by Police Community Support Officers in January and when a drunken male was seen to enter the premises at about 1.30am on Sunday, January 30, with no door staff present to prevent him from entering.

At the hearing, Sarah Lefevre, representing the pub owners Punch Taverns, said there had been no record on the pub's CCTV footage of the young girl being inside the premises on the night in question, while she said door staff had been inside the pub when the drunken man entered the premises, adding that he was refused service when inside.

She said, however, that Punch Taverns took the failure of test purchases extremely seriously, describing the failure on two separate occasions as “totally unacceptable.”

As a result, she said, action was taken with the existing tenants and the pub had ceased trading the weekend prior to the hearing.

But despite praising Punch Taverns' positive action, councillors still opted to suspend the premises licence for a period of one month and remove the Designated Premises Supervisor from their position.

The one month suspension recently lapsed, but the pub still remains closed and a spokeswoman for Punch Taverns, Alice Bowden, said the owners' priority was to re-open the pub as soon as possible.

She said: ”We are currently in negotiations with interested operators who we look forward to working in partnership with.”