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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
and if the applicant can provide all the necessary information to the Board when he submits his application. If an application for a liquor licence is submitted at the same time when the application for a restaurant licence in respect of the same premises is submitted, a liquor licence can normally be made available for issue within 5 days from the issue of a restaurant licence, provided that all other liquor licensing requirements have been met.
The Council has since 1 December 1995 introduced a provisional restaurant licensing system to streamline procedures and enhance efficiency in restaurant licensing. Under this system, a premise issued with a provisional restaurant licence will also be eligible for the issue of a liquor licence of the same duration, that is to say, 6 months, if all other liquor licensing requirements are met.
The third part of the question concerns statistics on liquor licensing and applications for appeal to the Urban Services Appeals Board. In the past 5 years, the Board received a total of 14,803 applications for new issue, renewal and transfer of liquor licences and refused 81 of them. Among the unsuccessful applications, 28 appealed to the Urban Services Appeals Board which upheld the Liquor Licensing Board's decision in 18 of these cases. Why is there such a difference in the rulings? For some of the cases, it is due to time lapse. For example, when LLB refuses to grant a licence or renew a licence, very often the Urban Services Appeals Board would have to find out the reason and see if the applicant has made any improvements during the appeal period, for example, whether the premises cause nuisances and whether there are any breaches of law and violation of liquor licensing conditions. If the answer is 'no', then the Appeals Board would exercise discretion to issue a licence to the appellant. For 10 of these cases, the Appeals Board granted a licence to the appellant.
The fourth part of the question asks whether the Urban Services Appeals Board is using the licensing policies and guidelines of the Liquor Licensing Board as the basis for examining appeal cases. Generally speaking, the Urban Services Appeals Board and Liquor Licensing Board are adopting the same principles in considering an application for a liquor licence and in examining appeal cases respectively.
The fifth part of the question asks for the elaboration of the details of the guidelines from previous decisions of the Urban Services Appeals Board. Guidelines prepared from previous decisions of the Urban Services Appeals Board and judicial review proceedings have already been issued vide Committee Paper LLB/49/95, i.e. on 26 October 1995, the paper was sent to Board Members for reference and there was a reference in connection with policies on liquor licensing. The list of these guidelines is quite long; I don't want to elaborate on it now, but Councillors interested in this can ask the Secretary of Liquor Licensing Board or myself, and a copy of the guidelines can be given to them as soon as possible.
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