Day 074 - 16 Jan 95 - Page 47
1 extension of our licence proved to be counter productive",
2 do you feel that really the residents have only got
3 themselves to blame for the problems with late night
4 environment/index.html">litter?
5 A. If you have those people eating in, then the potential
6 problem is contained within the restaurant. People will
7 eat in and they will sit down and especially after having
8 one or two drinks, they will sit down and have a cup coffee
9 or whatever and drop all the environment/index.html">litter within the restaurant
10 and leave the restaurant.
11
12 Q. Yes, I understand that, but do you just feel that, well, it
13 is the residents' only fault for making objections; they
14 should not be complaining now about the environment/index.html">litter because if
15 they had not opposed your late night licence there would
16 not a problem?
17 A. If there is a late night licence, there would not be a
18 problem. On the other hand, it is still the duty of the
19 existing manager to make sure that things work accordingly
20 and you do not just sit back just because the application
21 had been turned down. That was one of the suggestions
22 which came up, that we should try to request for a late
23 night cafe licence just to contain the problem.
24
25 Q. If you wanted to control the problem you could have stopped
26 doing take-aways, could you not, and closed at 11 o'clock?
27 A. Well, that is not within my power to answer that
28 question, the opening and closing hours.
29
30 Q. Why? Who is that set by then?
31 A. Those are set by the company when the opening hours are
32 and when the closing hours are.
33
34 Q. What would happen if you closed the store at 11 o'clock?
35 A. If you closed the store at 11 o'clock you would not
36 sell after that.
37
38 Q. Yes, I know, but what would happen? What would Head Office
39 do about it?
40 A. It is their own decision, so they would not do it, they
41 would not say anything.
42
43 Q. So you could have closed at 11 o'clock to contain the
44 environment/index.html">litter problems?
45 A. Basically, you provide a facility. If it was such that
46 the customer had thought that they should not have come in
47 because there was a problem of environment/index.html">litter, there would not have
48 been anybody who had walked into that restaurant after
49 11.00. You actually provide the facility to your local
50 resident community and to your customer. So, basically,
51 that facility was provided. People wanted McDonald's to be
52 open between 11.00 and 12.00, otherwise they would have
53 stopped coming in and we would have closed anyway at
54 11 o'clock.
55
56 Q. Did you actually know whether they were all local anyway?
57 A. Well, no, I would not say that I knew, but they come
58 from the local pubs and some of them from the local wine
59 bars, so I assume.
60
