AN Indian restaurant owner has been told to stick to the rules or face losing his licence.

Avijit Debnath, owner of Aby's Indian Experience in Faringdon Road, appeared alongside restaurant manager Rajib Malaker at a meeting of the council's licensing panel on Thursday.

They faced the prospect of losing their premises licence after a complaint from Wiltshire Police.

But councillors decided to give the pair a final chance. Not only did they avoid revocation, they even dodged a second option of a two week suspension put forward by licensing officers.

Attention was first drawn to the restaurant when police officers were called to an incident involving criminal damage on Sunday, June 4, at 2.36am. During the investigation it emerged that one of the witnesses had gone into the restaurant as a customer at 1am and was still there an hour and a half later.

Aby's is not licensed to serve hot food after 11pm.

Acting on this information, a licensing check was carried out a week later - officers found the manager didn’t know that selling hot food into the early hours needed an extension of his licence.

There was also no evidence of an age verification policy in place to control the sale of alcohol although the main issue revolved the sale of food, not drink.

After the visit, Mr Debnath and Mr Malaker were spoken to and warned that no sales, either of alcohol or hot food, should occur after 11pm until they had applied to vary their licence.

However just seven days later, on June 17, a Wiltshire Police licensing officer posing as a customer was able to walk in to the restaurant at midnight, order hot food, witness another table being served hot food, and leave. She was unsuccessful in trying to purchase alcohol.

Appearing before the panel of three councillors, Mr Debnath apologised for his failure to heed the warnings of inspectors.

His solicitor, Stephen Woods added: "There are a number of relevant factors. The first is that the incident of criminal damage on June 4 was not referable to a customer.

"An application has already been put in to change the designated premises supervisor which should address some of the practical problems and there was no alcohol involved at the time.

"It was a breach of the refreshment requirement only."

Prior to the hearing, the police had met with representatives of the restaurant and a number of conditions had been agreed meaning the full revocation of the licence wouldn't have to be pursued.

These included new CCTV cameras, a till system to record accurate sales details and the removal of Mr Debnath as the designated premises supervisor.

Wiltshire Police asked councillors to suspend the restaurant's licence for two weeks to allow the changes to be fully implemented.

However, after hearing from all parties in the case, the panel decided against that course of action and opted to simply impose new conditions on the licence which will take effect soon.

But they left the Aby's team in no doubt that any further failure to adhere to the rules would result in more serious consequences.

Chairman Vera Tomlinson said: "This is a huge warning coming across to you. We won't take things lightly another time."