Wolverhampton pub stripped of licence after CCTV footage of late night lock-in 'stolen'

The owners of the Rocket Pools Inn in Bradley, Wolverhampton, were accused of “persistently” breaching the conditions of their licence by allowing alcohol to be served without a nominated supervisor and for failing to keep CCTV records.

Footage of a 4am ‘lock-in’ last November was found when the council finally got a hold of the pub’s CCTV only for the owner to tell the local authority just two days later, after a copy of the video had been requested, that it had been stolen in a burglary.

The pub, in Rocket Pool Drive, also did not have a fire risk assessment.

Juggi Sunar, who ran the pub for 20 years, died suddenly on January 7 with the ownership handed to Kiran Sunar and son Shaun who both asked the council hearing for a “clean slate” having been left “appalled” by how the pub had been run.

Despite their pleas, the pub’s licence was revoked by councillors at a meeting on Wednesday (March 5).

Kiran Sunar had told the hearing she was “appalled” by the how the business had been run, found the licence review “deeply concerning”, and was prepared to “do whatever she could to make the pub a success.”

“We know the locals and we know it could be a good pub like it used to be and we would like that opportunity,” she said.

Juggi’s son Shaun Sunar added that he was willing to “step up” as the new licence holder and “not follow the path of the last management.”

Rob Edge, representing the Sunars at the hearing, said the mother and son were “aiming to transform the business into a family-friendly pub focused on good food rather than a venue driven by vertical drinking.”

“It is not in there interest to not get it right,” he added.

However during the hearing on March 5, Cllr Alan Butt said he was unsure whether the inexperienced Mr Sunar would be ready to start afresh.

“I’m not quite certain you’re in the right position now to start a new premises without enough knowledge and authority to actually manage it and make sure that these things don’t happen again,” he told Mr Sunar.

Explaining the council’s decision to revoke the licence, the authority’s solicitor Ronald Sempebwa said the pub’s licence holder had showed “repeated disregard for public safety.”

He said the appearance of the proposed new licence holder Shaun Sunar at the hearing did “little to instill any confidence that there will be the necessary changes.”

Mr Sempebwa said the absence of the designated supervisor Balbir Durha from the hearing “was all the more noteworthy” given the review and his appearance “would have gone a long way” to allaying the council’s concerns.

The licence holder Ravinder Singh Gill did not attend the hearing after telling Mr Edge he had suffered an anxiety attack over the potential grilling from councillors.

The hearing followed initial concerns the pub was running without a designated supervisor as the one named on the licence had allegedly left the business.

The checks led to council officers finding that the pub did not have a fire risk assessment and could not provide CCTV for the previous month – two important conditions of its licence.

When the council was finally given access to the CCTV, officers found footage of a ‘lock-in’ in late November when the pub also did not have a designated supervisor to sell alcohol.

A request was first made for a compliance check in November last year over the ownership of the Rocket Pools Inn as the listed supervisor David Causer had allegedly left and no longer had anything to do with the Bradley pub.

The pub was given two weeks to rectify the issues and with four days to go, Mr Causer withdrew his consent with immediate effect and licence holder Ravinder Singh Gill was told the pub no longer had a designated premises supervisor (DPS) to authorise the sale of alcohol.

The council asked Mr Gill three days later whether the pub was still trading and was told it was closed for refurbishment until November 27 – with the proposed new supervisor Balbir Singh Durha currently undertaking a training course. The application to change the licence followed a few days later.

The council visited again in early December to look at the pub’s CCTV and fire risk assessment, only to be told by a member of staff there was nobody available to access the CCTV – another breach of its licence.

Later that month, the council was shown footage from a weekend in late November which showed a lock-in at around 3.40am with ‘several’ people sitting and drinking.

The council requested a copy of the footage by the end of the following day but never received the video.

Mr Gill called the council two days later to tell them the pub had been broken into and the CCTV footage had been stolen.