PROTESTERS have clashed with a leisure company over its controversial bid for a late licence for York's Barbican Centre.

Residents claimed yesterday that if a licence to sell alcohol until 2am was granted to prospective operators Absolute Leisure, up to 3,500 people could end up making their way home from the centre in the early hours, causing a disturbance in local streets.

They claimed that problems such as drunkenness at the company's existing venues elsewhere in Yorkshire and the north-east, including the Tuxedo Princess nightclub in Gateshead, could be replicated in York.

But counsel for Absolute Leisure, Charles Holland, claimed the Barbican would be a very different operation to such outlets, with the proposed lounge bar having the atmosphere of a "very plush hotel lounge style bar."

During the day, he said, it would attract a mix of families, tourists and business people, with a more mature crowd attracted during the evening.

Managing director Tony Knox said a high- quality venue was planned which would attract people to the location outside the city centre. "We need to be better than any other venue in the city, because we need to bring people across town," he said.

The claims and counter-claims came during the first day of a two-day hearing by a City of York Council licensing committee into the late-licence application.

The hearing at the Guildhall, attended by almost 30 objectors, was punctuated by a series of complex legal arguments.

Jeremy Phillips, counsel for a number of objectors, argued that the hearing should not even go ahead, claiming Absolute Leisure had failed to correctly post legal notices around the perimeter of the proposed licensed premises.

He said the notices, posted in windows inside the existing centre, might not be seen by people walking along the pavement in roads such as Paragon Street.

But the committee ruled against the application after Mr Holland had argued that the notices did comply with licensing regulations.

Fishergate Green councillor Mark Hill was repeatedly warned by committee chairman Coun Gilbert Nimmo, that under national legislation, he was not allowed to speak on behalf of all constituents in his ward, but only on behalf of people who lived in the vicinity of the Barbican.

He said later that Coun Nimmo had threatened to report him to the Standards Board for England and Wales.

Updated: 10:11 Tuesday, July 12, 2005