Preston restaurant's shisha lounge approved amid indoor smoking ban warning

Plans to open a shisha lounge above a Turkish restaurant in Preston have been given the go-ahead – but with a warning about the need to comply with indoor smoking regulations.

Preston City Council has granted planning permission for the conversion of the currently vacant first floor of Bosphorus Sofrasi, on Friargate North. The ground and mezzanine levels of the eatery itself will be unaffected and continue to trade as normal.

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The authority’s planning officials concluded that the venture – which will feature a sofa-style seating area, bar, event room and prayer room – would not have an “unacceptable impact” on surrounding properties, the street scene or highway safety.

However, a report explaining the decision notes that the ban on indoor smoking in public places, which was introduced in 2007, falls outside the planning system at both a local and national level – and so was not taken into consideration during the assessment.

Shisha – or flavoured tobacco – is usually smoked amongst groups of people as a way of socialising.

The town hall’s environmental health team advised that a condition be attached to the planning permission requiring all designated smoking areas to be less than 50 percent enclosed in order for them to comply with smoke-free premises rules. That would mean the shisha lounge would be required to have permanent openings in the walls equivalent to at least half of their total area.

But city planning chiefs concluded that as the development would have to be implemented “strictly in accordance” with any approved plans, it was not possible for “matters fundamental to the design” to be dealt with by a condition determining how the proposal would subsequently be implemented.

They acknowledged that the event room had been reserved as a non-smoking area and that the proposed mechanical smoke extraction system and the ventilation and smoke management it would provide were “acceptable” in planning terms.

However, the report cautioned that the proposed mitigation might still not enable the premises “to operate in accordance with the requirements of other relevant legislation” regarding indoor smoking.

The venue will be permitted to open until 1am on Saturdays and Sundays, with a midnight closing time on weekdays, which planners deemed sufficiently similar to neighbouring bars and restaurants on Friargate not to cause additional disturbance.