Scots cafe fights late licence law

By Gillian Drummond

An Edinburgh café owner is set to take on local licensing chiefs in a battle over 24-hour opening.

Lorna Pellet, proprietor of Café Florentin on St Giles Street, has applied for a licence to open all hours every year since starting the business in 1991, but she has always been turned down. Now she is pledging to fight the latest ruling and to take her case to the European court if necessary.

"I'm going to fight it until the end. I will take it as far as it needs to go, even if it means trying to get a European licence to operate," she said.

Ms Pellet has gathered 500 signatures of support through petitions in all three of her outlets in Edinburgh - Café Florentin, Bistro Florentin and pâtisserie Florentin.

She told Caterer that she believed she had been denied a 24-hour licence because City of Edinburgh Council did not want to set a precedent other businesses could follow.

Ms Pellet, who does not sell alcohol at her café, can currently open until 12pm during the week and until 2am at weekends. When she first opened the café she spent about a year flouting the law and staying open all night at weekends without a licence. "We've already done it and it has been successful. I still get people saying ‘When are you opening for 24 hours again?'"

For the coming few weeks, Ms Pellet plans to continue drumming up support in preparation for a meeting of the council's licensing board in October.

A spokeswoman for the council said every licensing case was dealt with on its own merit. But she said of Café Florentin: "There are residential properties around about that find it disturbing."

Ms Pellet is not the only caterer facing licensing problems in Edinburgh, which for years was famed for its late opening hours. Other restaurants and bars are also complaining about a curfew on them selling alcohol, which came into effect in March.

The council declared all pubs had to shut by 1am and all nightclubs by 3am, after complaints about a number of problems, such as night-time violence.

Pubs, clubs and restaurants are now lobbying licensing officers to get the curfew lifted. "It's a great shame for hospitality staff, it means they can't go for a drink after work," said James Thomson, chairman of the Edinburgh Restaurateurs' Association.

For visitors to Edinburgh this August, it is difficult to believe that licensing problems exist. Many premises are granted late licenses during the Edinburgh Festival and it is not unusual for bars to be open until 4-5am.