A RUGBY club in Cardiff will be allowed to stay open until 1am despite an angry resident’s complaints about the premises.
Old Illtydians RFC in Splott Road currently has a licence that allows it to sell alcohol between 11am and 11pm from Monday to Saturday.
The approval of its new licence means that it will soon be able to serve alcohol between 11am and midnight from Monday to Thursday, and between 11am and 1am from Friday to Sunday.
One resident who spoke at a Cardiff Council licensing sub-committee meeting on Wednesday, October 23, claimed people leaving the rugby club urinated on the side of the block of flats where he lived and that it held lock-ins until the early hours of the morning.
However, the club secretary said the clubhouse had a clean record with the police and council.
The resident, who lives next to the rugby club, said he was representing a number of others who lived in the same block of flats at the meeting and described scenes of “people… who are urinating outside the property, chucking glasses and being very loud, screaming and shouting.”
Cardiff Council ward member for Adamsdown, Cllr Grace Ferguson-Thorne, confirmed that she had received a number of complaints from residents about the rugby club.
She said: “The area itself is not the most easy. There are some challenges around it, but it is about making sure this premises is a considerate neighbour.
“The fact that they intend to open until 1am on the weekends… seems staggeringly late to me.”
Cllr Ferguson-Thorne said she had nothing against the rugby club itself, but she was concerned about how late it was proposing to operate until.
She later went on to describe the area as “very residential” and added: “Nothing else around us is going until 1am.”
Old Illtydians RFC club secretary, Adam Taylor, said about 27 complaints made against the club had come from one person living nearby.
“It is one person who has caused a [fuss].
“Morning, noon and night he is there… it is like an obsession.”
A council licensing enforcement officer went to visit the rugby club after allegations were made that the premises was operating beyond the hours permitted in its licence.
The officer said the club secretary refused to show them cctv footage of the dates requested as part of an investigation into this matter as he said he needed to first obtain consent from staff members.
Mr Taylor said there was a misunderstanding between him and the council officer and that the council had since been sent an email giving them permission to view cctv footage.
He added that the clubhouse had an “excellent record” and that it had previously assisted the police in past investigations in the area with its cctv footage.
He said: “The [cctv] access is always there.”
“They have already used the camera and checked out some complaints from the flats… and given us a clean bill of health.”
The rugby club has also agreed to a number of conditions proposed by the police and Shared Regulatory Services.
Mr Taylor said the clubhouse was for members only and that they operated a strict policy on drugs and crime, adding that when someone was banned they were banned for life.
Mr Taylor went on to describe Splott and Adamsdown as a “good working class area” that keeps having its community spaces taken away from it.
On the clubhouse and the proposed licence changes, which include allowing it to have live music, he added: “All we are trying to do is feed the community.”
