Southsea restaurant could be stripped of alcohol licence despite closing last month

A restaurant in Southsea could be stripped of its alcohol licence as a result of a city council review, despite closing last month and being put up for sale.

Monty’s in Castle Road has drawn complaints from dozens of its neighbours who said the business – and its predecessors – had been a “repeated problem” for 15 years due to noise and abuse and anti-social behaviour from customers.

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Amanda O’Reilly, who lodged the review with the support of 31 neighbours, said the bar had “deteriorated” over the last 18 months “with drunk clientèle allowed to shout in the street, excessive noise and a violent, unprovoked attack on a resident”.

“This is not a one-off party that got out of hand,” she said. “Residents have seen the decline of Monty’s and it has now reached rock bottom. The residents have had enough.”

The review has not been supported by Hampshire police but it confirmed a number of reports had been made around incidents involving the restaurant.

This included:

• A member of its staff reporting harassment from a neighbour in June 2022,
• three complaints about loud music and customers being “aggressively loud and urinating and doing sexual acts in a driveway” with reports of drug taking in January this year,
• a report of loud music and “loud and abusive” customers in March,
• a May report that the restaurant’s owner had threatened to damage a neighbour’s property,
• and a complaint about a June birthday party at which there was a report that customers attacked Mrs O’Reilly’s husband, David.

In March, council licensing officers issued a formal warning to the business after environmental health officers had also issued a noise abatement notice.

Both have now requested that the premises licence be amended so that neither live nor recorded music can be played. They requested conditions including the installation of CCTV, extra staff training and more control around customer sitting outside.

Twenty five people have written to the council in support of the review, including Pam McGuinness, the chairwoman of the Castle Road & Area Residents’ Association.

She said: “The premises has caused stress and anxiety for the residents, many of whom don’t feel safe to leave their homes when the bar customers are filling the street.

“The noise and drunken behaviour was bad enough but now a resident has been attacked by a large group of the bar’s customers. We simply need the licence to be revoked.”

Four people have written in support of the business, describing its owners as “the most accommodating hosts,” and contradicting the claim of assault.

Karim Sattari, a director of HKS Enterprise Ltd, said: “We were extremely shocked when we were informed that our licence was subject to a review by a resident,” he said. “We knew of concerns over our noise levels on occasion but we found these to be on evenings when private parties had booked out our venue and included a live or amplified singer.

“After being informed that our noise levels were too high we removed our speakers to a much smaller single speaker and would only allow singers under a temporary event notification.”