An application from the staff of a Queens Road convenience shop to start selling alcohol at 7am has been refused by Watford Borough Council.

The premises supervisor of the Spar store applied to vary the shop’s licence, to allow it to sell alcohol between 7am and 11pm, seven days a week.

Currently, alcohol purchases can only be made between 11am and 10pm. Opposers to the new selling hours cited the possibility of increased antisocial behaviour and public nuisance.

However none of the responsible authorities, including the police, attended the licensing sub-committee meeting, held in the town hall today.

Helen Lynch, ward councillor, said the new hours would only "attract people with an addiction to alcohol, which will have a negative impact on community."

She added: "Only someone who needs a fix of alcohol when they wake up would benefit, very few of us would buy a bottle of wine at 7am to drink with dinner.

"This is a cynical way to maximise profits by targeting people with an alcohol addiction."

Councillor Lynch said the early opening would affect parents walking their children to nearby primary schools in the morning.

She added: "I have been a victim of someone begging for money outside Spar who was clearly inebriated and the prospect of street drinkers in the subway is a depressing and unacceptable situation."

Tom Samuels, a Gladstone Road resident since 1998 having moved from Chorleywood, said the area already had a problem with antisocial drinkers.

He added: "The difference between Chorleywood and Gladstone Road is like chalk and cheese. It is in fact a very nice, stable area, and it is only the people who pass through who cause trouble.

"We have cans thrown into our garden, people going into the park to drink and we have various passing nuisances of that sort.

"On one occasion we had a guy beating up another guy in our garden, with one saying ‘you’re killing me, you’re killing me’ and one had a knife.

"There will be more alcohol on the street if the license is granted and there could be more crime. I’m very concerned that the police haven’t come forward."

Hartej Pal Singh Garcha, current premises supervisor, said: "The current morning customers come to buy newspapers and are very respectable, I don’t see many street drinkers anymore because we have stopped selling single cans. In the evenings we have people going to parties who are buying in bulk."

Chairman of the committee councillor Peter Jeffree rejected the shop’s request but brought the licensing hours forward by one hour to 10am until 10pm.