A LANDLORD faces a £20,000 court bill for a catalogue of food hygiene and loud music offences at his pub over many months.

Refuse was piled outside the back of the New Inn in Gowthorpe, Selby, the kitchen surfaces and equipment were not kept clean, there was no hot water for cleaning glasses or hand wash basins and there were no procedures in place to prevent food being contaminated or infected, York magistrates heard.

Kelly Hamblin, for Selby District Council, said that landlord Steve Dyson repeatedly ignored environmental health officers’ advice and food hygiene improvement notices.

When the pub’s licence was reviewed last year, it got extra conditions including keeping the noise level down between 11pm and 7am, following residents’ complaints, but a council officer clearly heard music with a bass beat in a home near the pub on April 18, 2013.

Magistrates banned Dyson from preparing or serving food indefinitely under a prohibition order, fined him a total of £17,500 and ordered him to pay the prosecution’s £3,135 costs and a £120 statutory charge, totalling £20,755.

Dyson, 53, of Leeds Road, Selby, pleaded guilty to breaching his pub licence, nine charges of failure to dispose properly of waste and six charges relating to hygiene inside the pub, committed between April and November 2013. Outside court, he said he would appeal and made no comment other than that the offences were committed by Selby Inns Ltd, of which he is company director.

Inside court, where he was charged as personally responsible and not as a company representative, he told magistrates he had been going through a “very difficult divorce” and his business had been going through a difficult time where it had “skirted on the edge of bankruptcy on a weekly basis”.

The pub had closed its food service because of the financial pressures.

Miss Hamblin said the pub now had hot water and the rubbish had been moved.

During the council investigations, Dyson had said the loud music was the first time it had been a problem for nine months and it had been caused by the pub being rather empty. Dyson had told council officers he had had boiler problems.

Tim Grogan, of the council, said: “This is a salutary warning to licensees that they should comply with the conditions of their licence and all other regulations and legislation relating to pubs.”