Mayo County Council gets pub licence

County Council become publicans... but only for a weekend


Edwin McGreal

Mayo County Council were officially pub licensees last weekend and had the right to serve alcohol in the Imperial Hotel, just across the Mall in Castlebar from their own offices.
It would make for quite the handy venue to repair to on Friday evenings after work for council staff but, fear not, the local authority is not spending public funds on going into the pub trade.
The council bought the Imperial Hotel from receivers earlier this year and in order to extinguish the license, they had to apply for an ad-interim transfer to take hold of the license.
That application came before Kiltimagh District Court on Friday last and the application to extinguish the license will be heard before Castlebar Circuit Court this week.
Judge Mary Devins questioned whether a local authority could in fact hold a seven day bar license but Ward McEllin, solicitor on behalf of Mayo County Council said that they had the same entitlements in this regard as any person would.
Judge Devins granted the transfer.
Mayo County Council, together with Castlebar Town Council, acquired the Imperial Hotel under a certain controversy earlier this year. Minister for State, Michael Ring TD said that the council should not be buying such property in a time of constrained finances. The council have indicated that they will wait until  they have greater funds before they work on renovating the historic building. It was the location for the founding of the Irish National Land League under the leadership of Michael Davitt in 1879.