Blackpool police have objected to a Rontec filling station shop opening 24 hours a day due to concerns that such an arrangement may not be safe for employees, even when two members of staff are on duty overnight.
The shop at the Esso forecourt on Yeadon Way, Blackpool, currently closes between the hours of midnight and 6am, with sales facilitated via a night-pay hatch. An application submitted by Rontec to change the premises licence has met with opposition from the local constabulary, however, after officers warned that the local area is a crime hot spot.
The BBC reports that Rontec’s application included a concession that the shop would only fully open overnight if more than one staff member were on duty, but Blackpool police objected to the store opening overnight even with this proviso due to the area being a hub for car meets and criminal activity.
Police reports in the area include glass bottles being thrown from a nearby bridge and a knife being carried. One resident is said to have reported gatherings of “70 cars with 20 to 30 young lads stood around”, while another tells of “a report of a car meet up next to Esso, cars doing donuts when children are walking nearby as just finished school”. The area is said to bear witness to hundreds of cars “racing up and down” according to the BBC, which reports Blackpool police’s PC Emma Pritchard as providing evidence to the council that the locale is “an area with a lot of car meet ups, causing anti-social behaviour.”
