Three West Lothian businesses get alcohol licence despite health concerns from NHS
A small Polish grocery store in Whitburn is one of three very different businesses which have been granted alcohol licences despite concerns about the health impact.
The others - a filling station forecourt convenience store and a wholesale business selling branded whisky - were all supported by the West Lothian Licensing Board.
But all three were met with the same blanket objection from NHS Lothian - that they would bring an overprovision of alcohol sales to the area, backed by data about alcohol related deaths in Scotland - even though the wholesaler requires a minimum order of 100 bottles to ship.
READ MORE: West Lothian board joins objections to under-fire National Care Service plans
The council’s licensing solicitor questioned the legal value of the objection.
Dorota Handzlik and her husband have run the Majka grocery in Whitburn’s West Main Street for the last two years.
Dorota has retail experience with Aldi and holds a personal licence. She told councillors that she planned to sell beer from one fringe and a one metre shelf behind the counter selling spirits. The amount would not “have much of an impact”, she told councillors.
Chairing the meeting councillor Tony Boyle agreed. He added that the proposal was for one of the smallest alcohol displays he had seen.
Sally Robertson moved her whisky wholesale business from Edinburgh to Broxburn. She told the Licensing Board she sold mainly to heritage sites in the Home Counties but had some customers in the north of Scotland. Crucially the minimum order was for 100 bottles of whisky or gin which is shipped by pallet. There are no public off sales from the warehouse.
An agent for the third applicant, BP, said the business already held a licence and the variation would be to cover the extension of the store at the forecourt in Edinburgh Road, Bathgate.
She told the committee: “This is to extend convenience offering. It is a very small premises." The extension to the building will extend the space to sell alcohol but also offer more fresh and frozen food.”
The agent added the NHS objection cited many references but did not produce detail and could not provide localised figures There was “insufficient detail to allow you to refuse the application Inadequate information for us to consider.”
There were no objections by the police or Licensing Clerk to any of the applications.
Councillor Boyle asked Licensing Solicitor Gary McMullen: “Can you give a view on the NHS objection. My main concern about it is if we refuse the application does it immediately give the applicant a case for the Sheriff Court to overturn it?”.
Referring the the BP application Mr McMullen said: “My advice to the board is that the objection does not provide sufficient evidence in law to support a grounds for refusal with regards the application. Speculation about potential health harm is not sufficient grounds on which to refuse an application.
“Licensing boards must base their decisions on causality not correlation. It’s not simply enough to put forward general data or general statistics.”
A spokesperson for NHS Lothian said the initial response to the warehouse application had come because the application paperwork carried the phrase “intends to offer delivery of alcohol to both business and private customers”.
Dona Milne, Director Public Health and Health Policy, NHS Lothian, said: “NHS Lothian supports West Lothian Council in moves to reduce the harmful effects of alcohol in local communities and currently supports a range of activities. These include offering reliable evidence-based digital information about alcohol to young people, highlighting community-led alcohol free social spaces and working closely with the West Lothian Licensing Board to help protect public health.
“Since June 2024, NHS Lothian has reviewed six licence applications and responded to three, focusing on areas that already have a high number of alcohol outlets and related harms. There is strong evidence that when alcohol is more available, due to more places to buy or longer opening hours, people buy and drink more. This can result in increased alcohol related crime and health harms, including deaths.”
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