Cafe at stunning beach can now serve booze
THE Chesil Beach Café, popular with anglers and other beach visitors, has been granted a licence to sell alcohol on and off the premises. One of the conditions will be installing CCTV after concerns from Dorset Police about security.
The business operator, who rents from the Illchester Estate, had opposed the cameras at the outset saying there had never been a problem in the area and very little of value would be kept at the café. The new Premises Licence allows alcohol sales up to 10pm Monday to Thursday and until 11pm on Friday and Saturday, although the café will only infrequently be open for those hours; usually closing earlier, the longer hours only likely in the summer and for special, ad-hoc events. The usual opening hours for the premises are 10am until around 5pm.
The café, in the corner of a small public car park at the end of Bullers Way, Abbotsbury is run by Sally Allan and a small staff team. She also runs Sally’s Fish Camp and lives in Abbotsbury. The Chesil Beach Cafe offers outdoor seating and takeaway facilities with both the car park, which has its own ANPR cameras, and public toilets open 24-hours.
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Ms Allen said she had run the business since May 2024 and, during that time had never experienced any problems or anti-social behaviour. She told councillors on a licensing panel that the building had always been, and remained, connected to a sophisticated alarm system and she saw no real need for the CCTV in addition.
“I just feel the request for extra CCTV is excessive for what I am doing there. There is no seating inside. It’s all take-away… “We won’t be open through the night, I don’t have energy or staffing for that, but might want to hold occasional special events,” she said.