Lewes Gin and Fizz Festival secures licence at last minute

On Thursday (June 9), a Lewes District Council licensing panel granted a premises licence allowing the sale of alcohol and the playing of live music within Southover Grange Gardens on one day in June each year.

The application, from the council’s tourism arm Visit Lewes, is for the annual Gin and Fizz Festival, which this year is due to take place on Saturday (June 11).

The hearing had been called in light of a single objection from a resident, who wrote that the event would harm wildlife, close off a public area and create a noise disturbance.

The objector, who did not attend the hearing, also argued the event would ‘set an unwelcome example’ for children around drinking.

This was disputed by event organisers who stressed their view that it was a “really safe and well-organised event” intended to promote local food and drink producers.

This view was shared by councillors, who opted to grant the licence with some minimal changes. These changes included a formal requirement for organisers to put up ‘please leave quietly signs’, to operate a Challenge 25 policy on alcohol sales and to ensure details of future events are signed off by the council’s licensing team.

During the hearing, councillors heard that the short notice application had come about as a result of a subtle change in how the council grants its licences.

Councillors heard that organisers had initially been hoping to secure permission for the festival by securing a pair of Temporary Event Notices (TENs) covering two parts of the site.

Organisers said this practice (which allowed the festival to accommodate more than the 499 attendees allowed under a single TEN) had been used in previous years, but this was said to be inappropriate when applied for this time round.

As a result, organisers had the choice of either reducing the size of the event or going through the process of securing a premises licence. While they chose the latter, it is a longer and more involved process than securing a TEN, meaning the final decision date fell closer to the festival than originally expected.