A Truro newsagent’s bid to extend its licence and opening times to sell alcohol from 6am to 11pm was given short shrift by a police spokesperson, who believed it would exacerbate antisocial behaviour and crime associated with street drinking.

Aran Vijayaragavan took over long-established Tremletts in River Street in March and applied for an extension because, he told a Cornwall Council licensing committee, he believed there was customer demand.

He said customers come in for their morning papers and “we are not able to fulfil their purchase of alcohol when they want to buy it”.

He added: “If things do go sour, we’re happy to revert back as we don’t want any nuisance.”

Councillors heard that the shop is within Truro’s Cumulative Impact Zone (CIZ), which aims to control the consumption of alcohol in areas where there are incidents of antisocial behaviour.

Devon and Cornwall Police licensing officer Sue Edwards told the meeting on Wednesday: “As I’m sure you’re all aware, Truro does experience issues with crime and disorder, antisocial behaviour (ASB) and street drinking, which have a large effect on daily policing. We have a dedicated ASB officer and street rangers who patrol daily.”

When the new owners took over Tremletts, Ms Edwards visited and told them the premises are situated directly in front of Chough House, which is owned by Cornwall Council and houses vulnerable homeless people who have drug and alcohol issues.

She pointed out the importance of not selling alcohol to anybody who appeared intoxicated as this exacerbated ASB and crime. Ms Edwards said she had to speak to the previous owners of Tremletts as a female resident of Chough House had been buying alcohol to take back to the premises while under the influence and dressed in pyjamas.

On July 31, the ASB officer witnessed a well-known street drinker being served further alcohol at Tremletts while extremely intoxicated. Ms Edwards visited the premises the next day and spoke to a member of staff who didn’t deny serving the street drinker but said in his defence that the man had “demanded the alcohol”.

“I gave suitable advice in his legal obligation in refusing the service of alcohol to anybody who appears intoxicated, and said he should have called the police if he felt threatened. I also informed him that if further instances of this nature occurred, consideration would be given to issuing a fixed penalty notice, or a prosecution, and the premises’ licence could be at risk.”

She said the new application was submitted with no extra conditions mentioning the effect of crime and disorder, or the fact the shop is in an impact zone. The police’s licensing officer added there was no evidence that the applicant would not be adding to the impact of street drinking.

The Public Health team had also lodged an objection to the licence variation and the applicant offered additional measures to mitigate risks to the zone, most of which were already included in the shop’s current licence, including staff training, CCTV and requesting ID.

Ms Edwards added: “We are asking that the sale of alcohol is not availableat that time (from 6am to 8am) or late into the night. We do not believe that the general public popping into Tremletts to get their morning paper will be looking to purchase alcohol at 6am.

“In our opinion, the only people who will be attractedto purchase alcohol that early are the street drinkers who go on to cause the crime, disorder and ASB that the police, antisocial warden and street rangers then have to deal with all day long.”

Committee member Cllr Peter Perry said the extent of Truro’s street drinking problem was obvious. “In the last four times I have visited, on two occasionsthere have been incidents where there was rowdyism and the police involved to break up scuffles, so it is a nuisance,” he added.

The application to vary the licence was refused with the committee believing that if it was granted it would have a negative impact on the city.