Jukebox Romford 4am Licence: Police Object, 17 Sept Hearing

The Met, environmental health and the council's own licensing team all want Jukebox's 4am bid refused. The sub-committee decides on 17 September.

A Romford town centre venue wants to stay open until 4am on Friday and Saturday nights, and all three public bodies that have commented want the application refused.

Jukebox, at 72 to 74 South Street, has applied for a new premises licence that would push its weekend closing time from 03:00 to 04:00. Havering’s licensing sub-committee hears the case at 10.30am on Thursday 17 September in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, and the meeting is open to the public (agenda and papers).

The applicant is Moonshine Entertainment Limited, which has held the licence since February 2020. The council’s licensing authority received the application on 23 July 2026.

What is being asked for

The current licence lets Jukebox sell alcohol and provide regulated entertainment until 02:30 on Fridays and Saturdays, with the premises closing at 03:00. Monday to Thursday it runs to 02:00, closing at 02:30.

The application would change the weekend only:

alcohol and late night refreshment until 03:30, an hour later than now
live entertainment until 03:30
recorded music until 04:00
the premises open to the public until 04:00
an extra hour again on ten named days a year, including St Patrick’s Day, Halloween and Christmas Eve
opening until 4am on any Sunday immediately before a bank holiday

Midweek hours are unchanged.

In its own words, the application “asks for an additional hour on Friday and Saturday and to bring recorded music into line with closing time at a lower level within the last half hour to aid with dispersal”. Its case for being allowed to do so is short: “The business has been running for 6 years without under this licence and successfully within the conditions of their current licence.”

The current licence already runs past the council's guideline hours. The application would add another hour on top.

Why the objections matter

Jukebox is inside the Romford Town cumulative impact zone, the area inside the ring road where the council decided the number and density of licensed premises was already undermining the licensing objectives.

Inside that zone, the council’s own policy creates what it calls a rebuttable presumption: applications that add to the cumulative impact “will normally be refused”, unless the applicant shows why their premises will not add to it. Applicants are also expected to say explicitly why their application should be treated as an exception.

The council’s guideline closing time for a nightclub on a Friday or Saturday is 02:00. Jukebox already trades beyond that.

Three responsible authorities have objected. No residents or businesses have.

Havering’s licensing authority says the application contains no explicit rebuttal of the cumulative impact policy, and that it dilutes the conditions currently attached to the licence while asking for more hours. Its examples:

the current licence says noise “shall not emanate from the premises which could cause a nuisance to nearby properties”; the new wording only asks the licence holder to “take all reasonable steps” to stop noise causing a public nuisance
the application keeps Challenge 21 for age checks, rather than Challenge 25, which the officer notes is the current industry standard
the current requirement for door supervisors outside to wear high visibility clothing is replaced by “professional, smart and appropriate attire”

The officer also asked, on 29 July, for evidence of a drugs awareness qualification the licence has required since 2020. A certificate was supplied on 30 July, the day after the request, issued by a body the officer says is not accredited, and held by someone who is not the designated premises supervisor.

The same report is careful to say the venue is not a problem under its current hours: “The licensing authority is reassured that the premises is run largely in accordance with its duty to promote the licensing objectives within the current permitted hours.” The last complaint on record about Jukebox was about noise, in July 2021.

Environmental health objects on public nuisance. Its concern is customers leaving at 04:00 and lingering afterwards, and in particular the residents of the new development above the Santander branch at 71 to 73 South Street, directly opposite. Officers say the existing 03:00 closing time is already something those residents will have to live with, and that adding an hour at the weekend would be unreasonable.

The Metropolitan Police object on crime and disorder and on public nuisance. Its licensing officer describes the licence holder as “generally a responsible and cooperative operator who has engaged positively with Police”, then sets out two problems.

The first is a licensing visit on 14 August 2026. Officers found staff training records lacking detail, an incomplete door supervisor register, external door staff not wearing high visibility clothing, and CCTV paperwork that could not be produced.

The second is more serious. Police say CCTV showed regulated entertainment continuing past the licence’s 02:30 cut-off, at around 02:45 and 02:55 on 8 August, and indicated the same on 1 August. The licence holder told officers they had believed for about six years that an agreement with police allowed music to continue quietly after 02:30 to help people leave gradually. Police say they can find no variation or documented agreement of any kind, while accepting the breaches may not have been deliberate.

The incident list

Attached to the police representation is a list of recorded police incidents linked to the venue between 5 August 2025 and 5 August 2026. There are 33 of them.

By the category police recorded:

7 sexual assault on a female
8 drug possession, 6 of them cocaine and 2 cannabis
5 assault occasioning actual bodily harm
4 common assault and battery
2 involving administering a substance
1 grievous bodily harm without intent
1 racially or religiously aggravated assault, and 1 of racially or religiously aggravated harassment
1 intentional harassment, alarm or distress, 1 of fear or provocation of violence, 1 assault on a constable and 1 counterfeit note

None of these are convictions, and none are findings against the venue. Police say plainly that the incidents “may not be indicative of poor management”, and their argument is about timing rather than blame: a significant proportion happened after midnight and in the final hours of trading, which is why they say another hour would extend the window in which they occur.

The list’s last entry is dated 11 April 2026. Nothing appears in the final four months of the year it covers.

A sergeant from the Romford Town Centre Policing Team has also submitted a supporting statement on the town centre night time economy. It is referred to in the police representation but is not among the documents published with the agenda.

What it means for you

The decision is made in public on Thursday 17 September at 10.30am, in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, Main Road, Romford. The papers are online and free to read.
The consultation window has closed. It ran until 20 August, so representations can no longer be made; the sub-committee can grant the application, grant it with conditions or hours different from those applied for, or refuse it.
If you live above a shop in the town centre, this is the sort of application worth watching. Environmental health’s objection turns on exactly that, and on the new flats opposite.
The council is separately consulting on a borough-wide public space protection order aimed at anti-social behaviour, which covers some of the same ground in the same streets.
Late-night parking rules in the town centre are on our parking in Romford page.