The city council has recently granted La Tasca – opposite the bottom of Wadborough Road – a late licence until 12:30. They will now apply for planning permission to actually open until then.
OK, so the licence has conditions about keeping people quiet on the terrace, and having community meetings, but do you really think this will make a great deal of difference? And once people leave, probably full of drink, they can do as they please on the street, shouting, banging taxi doors and so on, as we know only too well.
La Tasca say that they want to enable people to go on eating, since they are a restaurant. But how many people do you know that sit and eat food after midnight? Look at La Tasca’s website – most of their places shut at 11pm – perhaps because the local councils elsewhere look after their citizens better than ours. Even in the heart of down-town Manchester, La Tasca Deansgate only opens after 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, until 2am.
And on Friday and Saturday night, the kitchen closes at 11pm, and only cold food is available – called bar snacks in a pub. After 11pm it looks like they are milking it as a bar and so no doubt want their customers to spend as much as possible on booze. You can safely bet it will be no different here in Sheffield.
Oh, and the new manager at La Tasca used to run a pub – is this a career move on their part, or do the management actually want our La Tasca to emphasise the bar more than the food, like Abuelo on the next block? I leave you to make your own mind up on that one.