Always on
This project successfully funded on 29th April 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
Help Seabird Serve You More!
Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom
Aim
Help Seabird extend its opening hours by varying its alcohol licence.
Hello From Seabird!
Seabird is a great little food and drink business in Ramsgate. We opened in summer 2023 and have been happily serving residents and visitors to the town with great cocktails, seasonal bar snacks and small plates, fab wines, great coffee and super music on our Hi-Fi sound system. In a difficult time for hospitality, Seabird has been a success story for Ramsgate by local residents Stuart Langley and Damian Williams.
Why We Are Crowdfunding
To secure the future of Seabird, and the important role we play in the community, we want to serve more people and take more money. We want to open later than our current closing time of 9pm (weekdays) and 10pm (weekends). We have to turn away so many bookings and guests because they want to enjoy Seabird later than 10pm. This is a big shame, and across a year, costs us a LOT of money.
We aren't asking for much - a 60 minute extension of hours for our very civilised eating and drinking space. We acknowledge we are in a very residential area, but within two minutes walk of Seabird are three equally residential hospitality venues with later licences (Queen Charlotte - 12am / The Bedford Inn - 2am / The Artillery Arms - rumours of a 4am licence????). It seems crazy that we shouldn't be able to serve alcohol until 10pm and 11pm across the week.
Hold On? What About Ramsgate / Empty Shops / Regeneration?
Exactly. We are already doing the job of occupying a shop front, we employ and train and offer careers to our five staff. We offer an alternative to Ramsgate's brilliant pub culture. We attract people to visit the town by appearing in the Good Food Guide. We are exactly what everyone says they want in their town. So surely helping us to open an extra 60 minutes a day is a no-brainer.
What The Money Is For / How You Can Help
We are raising money to help cover the legal costs of opening later. So far our attempt to extend our opening hours has cost us £4000 in legal fees, and we will need to spend another £4500 before we can serve a drink at 10.05pm on a Saturday night. All monies raised will be used to cover our existing and future legal expenditure.
But it isn't just the money. If you support this campaign, you are also supporting our application to vary our alcohol licence. All support will be used within our application, for consideration by the licensing committee.
The Painful Back Story
In November 2024 we applied to extend our permitted hours by 60 minutes across the week - allowing us to open until a (very reasonable, we think), 10pm during the week and 11pm at weekends.
There are two parts to extending our hours, firstly we needed to vary the conditions on our planning (which permit us to trade as a hospitality venue, but require us to close at 9pm and 10pm), and secondly, after extending the planned hours, we need to vary our alcohol licence to match those hours. Each part is straightforward. Apply to Thanet District Council to make the changes. Notify the general public of our application. TDC consider things and comment. Members of the local community may or may not object. If there are objections, the application goes to a hearing where it will be approved or rejected. If rejected, we can appeal or go away and apply again at a later date. Simple.
Or not so simple. Our November 2024 planning application was recommended for approval by TDC, but due to vigorous campaigning by a (very small) number of local residents (one of whom is a Town Councillor who sits on the planning committee), the application to vary our planning got stuck. TDC were still seeking to approve, but seemed unable to do so. Nine months after submitting our application we therefore appealed to the UK planning office to consider our application - and 13 months after we first applied for the planning change - we won! Hurrah!
What Happens Next
We have permission to open until 10pm and 11pm - but we still can't serve anyone a drink after 9pm or 10pm. You can order a dessert after your meal, but you can't order a glass of wine to go with it. We now need to apply to vary our alcohol licence to match our new permitted hours.
After our experience with the planning process, we are absolutely certain that our alcohol application will go to a hearing where we need to be represented by an expert licensing solicitor. We know just the guy, who we have worked with successfully before. But legal support isn't cheap - with a cost of £4500 for the application and representation at the hearing.
We Will Win Our Application With Legal Help
We are asking to serve alcohol, within the permitted times of operation for the premises. We are a safe and responsible environment. We are a grown up place where people behave like grown ups. We are not a risk to the community.
However we are certain that the same handful of residents, including the same Town Councillor (who sits on the licensing committee, as well as the planning committee) will object and take our application to a hearing. At a hearing, with professional and expert representation, we will be able to counter those objections and ensure our application is successful.
Why We Can't Pay For This Ourselves?
Well, Seabird is a small business that offers nice things to nice people that doesn't have cash to spend on legal battles. We've tried to pay for everything ourselves so far, but the longer this struggle to open later goes on, the more harmful and costly it is to the business. We don't want to be a hospitality sob story but this business is TOUGH and we need all the help we can get. And if you don't want to donate money, then please donate your support instead.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made