Cafe banned from opening on Sundays after neighbours complain concerning the odor of sizzling meals and drinks

A café has been banned from opening on Sundays after neighbours complained about the smell of hot food and coffee.

Coco’s Coffee Shop has been told it cannot trade on Sundays because locals in Fareham, Hampshire, want one day a week ‘free of odours’.

People living in flats above the cafe bemoaned how they have to open their windows on a daily basis to ventilate the aromas of food and coffee and also complained about noise.

The matter was taken to a council planning meeting and it was ruled that opening on Sundays would be an ‘unacceptable encroachment’.

Coco’s owner Jacqueline Avis said she applied to open on Sundays to keep up with increasing bills and ‘may be forced to close’ as the decision went against her.

Coco’s Coffee Shop is on a parade of shops that includes a nursery, a barbers, a convenience store, and a hairdresser and beautician business.

Ms Avis said the other four shops had permission to open on a Sunday.

She applied to open her cafe between 10am and 4pm on Sundays but it was shot down at a Fareham Borough Council planning meeting.

Residents objected because of the impact on their quality of life from noise and food smells.

Jessica Lillywhite, a police worker who represented residents, said at the meeting they were opposed to the seventh day of opening because the noise from moving tables and chairs, people gathering and food smells affected their daily lives.

She said: ‘We want one day a week free of stress, free of noise, free of odours – that is all we are asking.’

Following the meeting, a man who lives in the flats above the coffee shop said he had to open the window to ventilate the flat when they are cooking downstairs.

He said: ‘I have lived here for 36 years and there was not a coffee shop below there before. As soon as they start cooking, we have to open our kitchen window because it stinks.

‘You think you have 20 people in there talking and it comes up through the floor.

‘I live with my partner, and we both work very hard, and the one day we want to have a lie-in in we wouldn’t be able to. We don’t want to have to get up to open the window.

‘It is because this is a wood-framed building, and it is going to come through. The building is from the early 60s.’

Caroline Melsome, 66, said it was a ‘nightmare’ to live in her flat with noise from the coffee shop.

She said: ‘It is mainly the noise, and we get a lot of cars there. It is a nightmare. We don’t get any peace.

‘It is bad enough with the nursery there. My partner is so ill and I am poorly myself it is very annoying.

‘We don’t get no peace. It is bad enough in the week and bad enough on a Saturday. Opening it on a Sunday will make it worse for everyone around here. I sometimes have my breaking points.’

Ms Avis, who has owned the shop for four years, fears this may lead to her shutting down.

She said: ‘Because of the economic state of things at the moment we need to gain another day to open. We don’t do things in the evenings and we just need another income.

‘Things have gone up in the last year like electrical bills, taxes and national insurance so we just need more income to stay afloat.

‘If we can’t, then we will probably have to do something quite drastic in the new year.

‘We do a cooked breakfast, but we do everything in the oven. We do fry eggs. We do jacket potatoes and paninis for lunch, so it’s not too odorous.

‘Four doors up is a pub that makes food too. There are seven flats up there, and there were three of the flats that objected.

‘We have done what we can. We don’t have a music licence. We don’t have an alcohol licence.

‘We have gliders on the chairs to stop them making scraping the floor, and we have noise-cancelling boxes on the coffee blenders and we keep them under the garden area of the flats.

‘I have six staff who will find it very difficult to get another job. I have got to get through Christmas and we will see. We are a great community coffee shop.

‘We have a little library, we hold wakes here, we have some dementia training. We are very much for the community. It is the only place on the estate unless you go to the pub. We have no community centre up here.

‘We have managed up ’til now but it is a struggle. We can’t afford to get in debt and we can’t put our prices up much more.’

At the meeting, councillor Steve Dugan said his sympathies were split between the families who had a right to live in peace and people who were allowed to earn a living.

Council officer Richard Wright said that, given the business already operated six days a week, the councillors needed to ask themselves if the additional opening on Sunday would adversely impact the neighbours.

Councillor Paul Whittle said: ‘It is an unacceptable encroachment to open on Sundays on the occupiers of the flats.’

The committee voted to refuse the application, with eight votes against and one in favour.