So a "Security Guard" trashed a friend's bike

They put one of you in hospital, you put one of them in the MORGUE.

doesent work if its not said in cockney

No no, it was that Kevin Costner one about prams in train stations.

As someone who works in a licensing office, we'll do precisely bastard all unless you can provide some kind of reasonable proof that there has been a breach of licensable activity. We might take a passing interest in the issue of fire escape signage but that's about it. Prove an employee of the club has been involved in an act of criminal damage and then we might take an interest but really, that's more the remit of the SIA.

At the moment, all that this thread has is unfounded allegations and conjecture. You're local licensing office ignores a lot of that on a daily basis.

Wait, so....

Someone walks out their flat, finds their property damaged with both a witness and cctv, and does not immediately report it to the police?

Cool, ok.

Ah but, well you see....

my family are in law so I know a fair bit and have plenty of legal resources / access to legal advice already.

My family isn't in law, but my wife's is.

So is that why Uncle Harry keeps taking 3-6 month holidays to "a nice little place I know".

Haha, fair enough! I had thought that involving a councillor might work as don't you sometimes have them breathing down your neck? Thanks for clarifying that though, I shan't suggest this to people in future as it's just clutter.

In terms of proving the breach of licensable activity, how might one request the license granted to an address on a particular date?

Licensing is a complex area of legislation. Councillors will sometimes breath down out necks but mostly it's around processing speed and dealing with things in a timely fashion. For anything else then they'll usually defer to a good explanation for our actions which are guided by said legislation. I would hope that a councillor would advise any constituent to report an act of criminal damage to the police in the first instance and then offer support once that has happened.

For finding out about a licensed premises, your first port of call should be call your local authority's licensing office. If you're making an allegation of breach of licensable activity then the vast majority will ask for a complaint to be submitted in writing.

It is worth noting that much of this incident appears to hinge on the use of the door as a fire exit from the club. That isn't the remit of the Local Authority's licensing office but the local Fire & Rescue authority. Licensing will work in conjunction with them but they have the final say on whether a fire exit is legal and appropriately signed.

Google the local authority and venue, you should be able to find the application and hearing, it is all public information.

Interesting, thanks for the information!

@mustardbeak Yes, although we've done a lot of work with local authorities to encourage publishing of licensing applications as open data, which is more consistent and digestible. Sad to say that only a few authorities continue to publish that data, everyone else reverted to the methods you described.

Friend has contacted the club. Police will be informed shortly. Just going to let it run it's course.

Have had confirmation from a frame builder that repair is not possible. Combined with witness and camera footage I think even the snakiest of club owners will pay up.

As to the whole "was my friend wrong" thing. I think the point people are missing is that his bike was not in the way of anything. It was just there. Outside the door to his room. It was not preventing the opening of the door or access to it. Pretty reasonable if it's inside your own property, I think.

Sure, if the door was a major thoroughfare it might have been in the way, but we're talking about a blank door on a private staircase which none of the residents had ever seen used or opened, so their collective line of thinking is hardly unreasonable.

Sad to say that only a few authorities continue to publish that data, everyone else reverted to the methods you described.

In the current climate for local authorities, the time and effort required to extract this sort of information from the current legacy systems and put it into presentable and meaningful formats for public access is an onerous piece of work. This then puts it outside of the sphere of work that is essential to the function of the service and gets added to the ever lengthening list of "nice to haves" that virtually no office in the country is going to try and tackle until there's a lot less pressure on their service.

It's shit and we're in a very shitty working environment. If I didn't care about public service I would chuck it all in and walk away in a heartbeat. I fight for a lot of system and practice improvements but in the world of intractable legacy infrastructure, escalating core business and picking your battles wisely, something like this isn't even close to being on my horizon.

Better open data from local authorities isn't going to move far forward while we're still dealing with the current austerity policies.

Yeah, to be honest the project managers didn't consider scalability or sustainability at all. And you're quite right, the pressure's on all fronts at the moment.

Public sector thread >>>>

I know right, it's inside but then has a yard? weird..

Private residence with the landlord's CCTV, a door that none knows where it leads to......

Seems legit.

Has this been resolved?

Thread of the year 2016

Sums up the state of 2016

Is the bike still for sale?

@oxpoleon and the security guard are now married and raising a baby camel in a Welsh forest. Security guard makes money by telling stories to locals about his adventures of randomly attacking mountain bikes, in the streets, hallways and gardens. Oxpoleon,s friend visits them at Christmas and cooks dinner out of grey squirrels.

Merely cosmetic damage, will buff out.

dibs?

#thanksobama