The High Court has overturned the Revenue Commissioners' refusal to grant a theatre licence to the Odeon Bar and Nightclub at the former Harcourt Street railway station in Dublin.
Kivaway Ltd, owner of the premises at 57 Harcourt Street, applied in September 2002 for a licence under section 7 of the Excise Act 1835. The restored historic building already held a seven-day on-licence, a public music and singing licence and a public dancing licence.
Revenue refused the application the following month. It said the premises was a public house rather than a theatre or other place of public entertainment and maintained that two licences authorising sale of the same categories of alcohol could not coexist for the same premises.
Mr Justice Quirke found that this reasoning was legally flawed.
The court noted that Revenue made its original decision before inspecting the premises and without considering additional information it had requested from Kivaway. The judge found that the refusal was based solely on the existence of the seven-day on-licence rather than a full assessment of whether the Odeon could also properly be described as a place of public entertainment.
The judgment recorded that the approximately 10,000-square-foot premises hosted live music, dancing, comedy, fashion shows, charitable events and other entertainment, and that Revenue had regularly granted special exemption orders allowing alcohol sales during such events.
The court rejected Revenue's contention that the licensing code implicitly prohibited simultaneous publican and theatre licences. No express statutory provision imposing such a ban had been identified, and section 7 of the 1835 Act remained in force.
Revenue remained entitled to examine each application on its own facts and could still decide, after a proper inquiry, that particular premises did not qualify as a place of public entertainment. What it could not lawfully do was reject an application automatically because a seven-day on-licence already existed.
The Odeon applicant was therefore entitled to judicial review relief. By agreement, the ruling also governed the parallel case concerning Pawnbeach Ltd, trading as 4 Dame Lane.