Noise complaints could scupper Moldova restaurant’s bid to sell booze

Restaurant Moldova, on Great Russell Street, has applied to the council to sell alcohol on the premises and move licensable activities into a second function room at the site, which is currently prohibited.

Councillors on the borough’s Licensing Committee are due to meet next Tuesday (December 8) to decide whether to grant an updated licence to the venue.

Veronica Orzea, the sole director of Moldova, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the restaurant is widely used as a wedding venue for Moldovans, Romanians and Latvians who live in and around the town. Guests currently bring their own alcohol.

Presently the venue opens until 2.30am on all days, apart from Friday and Saturday where it stays open an extra hour. Live music is allowed, as are late night refreshments.

But the proposals to add the sale of alcohol and open the second function room face strong opposition from the council’s own environmental health team. A representation from Louise Marshall, a senior environmental health officer at the council, said they were objecting due to ‘public nuisance’ issues.

She says: “We have concerns about use of the additional areas for licensable activities. There is a condition on the existing licence prohibiting use of function room two for licensable activities due to historical complaints about noise, and the rear wall of Moldova is adjacent to the wall of residential properties behind.

“At the time of the previous premises licence application, the applicant was made aware of the work that would be required at the premises to mitigate against noise transfer to nearby properties and to support any changes to the licence conditions. There is no information regarding prevention of public nuisance in this application and we have not received confirmation that this mitigation work has been carried out.”

Documents which will be read by councillors prior to them making a decision indicate that a noise complaint was made as recently as September.