Early trading ban in Edinburgh branded 'disappointing'

A blanket ban on early opening in Edinburgh has been branded as "very disappointing" by a leading trade group.

The Scottish Beer & Pub Association's chief executive Patrick Browne was responding to the City of Edinburgh Licensing Board's decision to turn down applications from 26 pubs in and around the city centre to open at 9am on Sundays.

The board will instead only allow trading starting in the afternoon - despite the fact that off-licences sell alcohol from 10am.

Browne said the decision goes against the council's own licensing policy which states it will allow trading from 9am, seven days a week.

He said: "It is very unlikely that many pubs in Edinburgh would have wanted to open every Sunday but there is a case for allowing some premises to do that to allow them to better cater for Edinburgh's tourists.

"At the very least the Edinburgh Board should now refund the fees paid by the 26 licensed premises that lodged applications to trade on a Sunday morning as allowed by the board's policy, given that it effectively turned its own policy on its head by rejecting applications which were submitted in good faith."

However Jonathan Winks, manager of the city's Auld Hoose, backed the decision of the board.

He said: "To be quite honest I object when I see pubs open that early in the morning and it is not something that we would want.

"I don't think it does anything for Edinburgh at all. When there were more shift workers you could make a case for it but these days there are fewer of those."

The council's licensing leader Marjorie Thomas, said: "We have taken the views of the licensing forum and the board found that we need to give the community some breathing space. There is also the whole issue of public health and alcohol. To increase licensing hours at this time is not acceptable."