May
27
City in Perth today had its terminal hours extension to 3am on Friday and Saturday evening made permanent following a 1 year successful trial period.
During the spring of 2010 the late night operators came together to request Perth & Kinross Licensing Board consider an experimental period allowing the closing hour to be extended from 2.30am to 3.00am on the weekend nights. There was general across-the-board support from tourism, business and economy groups with some reservation from the police on resource grounds. Paul Smith of CLG headed the campaign on behalf of the late night operators in persuading the Licensing Board to offer a trial period to gauge how the experiment would cope.
Following a 1 year successful trial, the Board on 27 May 2011, accepted the success of the experiment and agreed to make the extra 30 minutes permanent.
Paul Smith, MD of CLG said “We are delighted to be able to have proved to all concerned that Perth is a safe city centre for locals and visitors to enjoy the many attributes of the evening economy. Obviously, there were some concerns about the initial proposal, but we asked the Board to trust us and allow the opportunity to prove that the pros outweigh any cons. One year is a long experimental period, but over the peace it has proved successful for operators and a benefit to the vibrancy of the city centre overall.”
The new hours come into effect after a major variation application, but with the experimental period still valid until end of July this allows that the 3am terminal to continue undisturbed during the formal process of changing the licences.