Police sergeant claims new McDonald's will increase anti-social behaviour in Chorley

An row has broke out between a Lancashire police sergeant and a lawyer for McDonald’s after it was claimed the fast food giant was “synonymous” with antisocial behaviour in the county.

The officer said the force had a duty to combat the disorder associated with the chain, but was accused of having a “personal beef" with the firm after also suggesting it was trying to trick councillors into allowing its new outlet in Chorley to open around the clock.

The spat came during a meeting of Chorley Council’s licensing sub-committee which was considering whether to permit the restaurant currently being built in the Clayton-le-Woods area of the borough to serve customers until midnight.

The new Woodale Road branch, on the site of the former Beaumont pub, was granted planning permission by the authority in November, on the condition that it shut between midnight and 6am.

However, the law meant a licence for ‘late night refreshment’ was also required for the single hour of trading from 11pm – which the committee ultimately approved.

However, Lancashire Police licensing sergeant John Lovick had objected to the outlet operating during that period on the basis that it would fail to uphold one of the key objectives of the licensing regime – to prevent crime, disorder and public nuisance.

Evidence presented to the meeting showed the force had received 43 callouts to the McDonald’s on Clifford Street, near the town centre, over the two years to March – 14 of which merited a blue-light emergency response.

More than half of the incidents were classified as being the result of “nuisance”.

Sgt Lovick said if that branch did not exist, antisocial behaviour in Chorley would be cut by 30 percent.

He added that the call rate for such issues in the vicinity of the Clayton-le-Woods site was already high – but that it dropped to zero after 11pm, because nowhere else was open beyond that time.

“If this was a public house applying to open until midnight, then the police would not be objecting. – because there’s more crime and disorder in McDonald’s in Chorley than…in any licensed premises,” the officer said.

“We simply have no option but to ask you to reject the application – the simple reason being that…for Lancashire Constabulary…McDonald’s is synonymous with low-level crime and disorder, antisocial behaviour and nuisance. If we open McDonald’s after 11 o’clock those problems will go up.”

Sgt Lovick also suggested that the proposed midnight closure time was likely to be a “prelude” to a 24-hour operation, like all bar one of the five McDonald’s within a six-mile radius of the new venue.

“The Clayton-le-Woods branch will probably not even trade after 11pm. They will come to the council in six months’ time and say, ‘Look, we’ve been open till midnight, there’s been no crime and disorder – can we open till 5 o’clock in the morning the end of the late night refreshment period?’”

However, barrister Leo Charalambides, representing McDonald’s, said the claim was “staggering”.

“We’re certainly in the era of conspiracy theories, but I did not expect to find them here in Chorley. What evidence is there for the police sergeant to…say that a firm with a national reputation is engaging in this level of deceitful, dishonest and fraudulent behaviour?”

He told the committee that McDonald’s had not been subject to a single council review over concerns about the operation of any of its late licences anywhere in the country in the past decade.

Mr. Charalambides also rubbished Sgt Lovick’s assessment of the proposed operating rules for the new Chorley outlet as “generic”, stating that they were based on “a wealth of experience” that can be applied to “specific local operations”.

After the officer hailed the “proper conditions” attached to the licence for the McDonald’s on Foxhole Road in Chorley, near Tesco, the firm’s lawyer noted they were almost identical to the proposed operating schedule for the Clayton-le-Woods outlet.

“The police officer on the one hand is describing this as vague…and yet something 90 percent similar he describes as ‘robust’,” Mr. Charalambides said.

“I just think the officer has a problem with McDonald’s – and it’s personal. I just can’t find any other explanation.”

The barrister later urged councillors to “run a million miles” from the sergeant’s advice.

Sgt Lovick said he had been “besmirched” – and accused McDonald’s of seeking to “crush” any opposition. While the firm claimed to have been rebuffed by the officer when attempting to engage with him over his concerns prior to the meeting, he characterised their efforts as a “tactic” to coerce the police into accepting conditions in relation to an application it fundamentally opposed.

“McDonald’s is a global institution – it will, without hesitation, continue to systematically subjugate any opposition to its objective,” Sgt Lovick added.

Sixty-one percent of the 464 people who responded to a public consultation by McDonald’s into their plans for a Woodale Road branch were opposed to them. However, only public objection was lodged with the council to the licensing application.

‘No evidence’ new McDonald’s would be a nuisance neighbour

The committee heard a remote monitoring system linked to a panic alarm was amongst the proposed security features for the new McDonald’s branch – and was also told of instances at other outlets in the borough where staff had intervened to prevent crime, including after suspecting a woman who arrived at a drive-thru with a child in the back of her car was drunk.

The firm also commits to carrying out at least four litter picks per day around its premises.

Mr. Charalambides accused Sgt Lovick of presenting “a lot of general evidence about a very wide area, unrelated to the specific premises, which seeks to colour councillors’ views …and is not relevant”.

However, the officer told members their decision should consider pre-existing antisocial behaviour in Clayton Green so that it had regard to “what kind of impact” the new McDonald’s staying open until midnight would have on residents.

Committee chair Cllr Matthew Lynch said the licence application had to be judged in relation to the site for which it was being sought – and so evidence about the wider area and problems connected to the Clifford Street McDonald’s branch could not be taken into account.

He suggested the latter could be dealt with separately if the police chose to pursue it through the normal licensing process.

Announcing the three-strong panel’s decision to award a licence for the Clayton-le-Woods outlet, he added there was “a lack of evidence to suggest the…licensing objectives would not be upheld”.

“The applicant provides a comprehensive level of training to their staff members, with increased security measures in place,” Cllr Lynch said.

First for all the latest news from across the UK every hour on Hits Radio on DAB, at hitsradio.co.uk and on the Rayo app.