New grocery shop in old Fulton Foods Seacroft site can sell alcohol but is banned from advertising it

Sam’s Mini Market is set to open on Dib Lane in Seacroft, in a premises formerly occupied by Fulton Foods. A total of 31 people had signed a petition lobbying Leeds City Council to reject the new shop’s application for an alcohol licence, citing existing problems in the area with anti-social behaviour and litter. But the council approved the licence after receiving assurances from the store’s owners that it would not contribute to those problems.

It will, however, be banned from advertising alcohol in its shop window and outside the venue. Its daily licensed hours will be 8am to 10pm – 16 hours a week fewer than the shop had originally sought.

Representing owner Sarvat Hosseini at a council licensing committee hearing on Tuesday, solicitor Tony Clarke said: “No more than 20 per cent of shelf space will be used for alcohol at any one time. It feels like there may be a fear that this premises will become purely an off licence, but we want to reassure the residents that my client won’t do this. This will simply be a grocery store with an off-licence facility. He has no intention of contributing to any social problems in this area, and can put in place stringent measures to prevent this.”

Mr Clarke said Mr Hosseini and his brother, who is his business partner, had proved themselves to be responsible operators, having run a shop with a late-night licence in Leeds city centre for several years. He also said that a waste bin would be placed outside the shop and that the area would be checked for litter on a “daily basis”.

But local resident Rachel Dukes, one of three objectors to attend the hearing, said the parade on which the shop will sit had a “problem with young people gathering on the street”. She said: “It’s already, at times, quite an upsetting environment to walk through.”

Ms Dukes, who also works for the council’s public health team but was objecting as a resident, said: “We’ve an issue with fly-tipping going up to Wykebeck Woods. There’s an awful lot of glass, bottles and cans and they all get lobbed into the beck. If you add another outlet in an area where it’s already saturated (with alcohol), how will those problem decrease?”

In unanimously approving the licence, a panel of three councillors said they “recognised the concerns of the objectors” but the conditions limiting the hours and external advertising were “proportionate and reasonable” and would address the issues raised.