An ice cream makers with retail outlets claims it is being held back by a bureaucratic wrangle with Tavistock Town Council

Valenti’s IceCream on Duke Street, Tavistock, says it is being prevented from having tables and chairs at the back of its premises outside the pannier market and therefore, losing out on trade, due to a ‘lengthy seating fiasco’.

The family-run business employs around eight in the summer season, selling ‘artisan Italian-style light ice cream or gelato’ made on the premises with a reputation for quality for which it has won awards.

Lee Williams, the owner of the business, says he is having difficulties with Tavistock council, his landlord, which he describes as Dickensian in its attitudes towards entrepreneurial business which it tries to ‘micromanage’ with ‘anti-competitive;’ restrictions.

The council issued the lease for the high street shop two years ago, but has been ‘very unhelpful’ since to the business but now have ‘no support’ from Tavistock Town Council, said owner Lee Williams. He was told seating at the rear needed a separate licence which was not part of the lease, but the council refused permissions to have tables and chairs which are integral to the Valenti brand and culture of an Italian-style ice cream parlour.

“We were told we could have tables and chairs in the market surround like the other businesses next door to us on the market side. Then the town council said we would have to have that as a separate licence to the lease like all the other business who have seats there. The pointed out that the benches belonged to the town council and for anyone to use. 

“We then got months, actually years of contradictory statements from the council, but never any licence for seats. Then in March 2023 they flatly refused a license. They offered their reasons as a report voted on by the council which said only the existing food outlets could have tables. Also the benches owned and provided by the council, which had previously been for anyone’ to use, were going to be given under a licence to the previously existing businesses. This is making it impossible for our customers to use them. The report ultimately appears to be in contradiction of of the council’s own policy to support businesses. It was very unfair and puts our business at risk of closure.”

Lee said the lease for the business had the ‘ridiculous restriction’ of selling no coffee or other hot drinks’. The council told him he ‘could have an ice cream parlour but not a cafe’.

He said the business was originally advertised as a ‘rare opportunity’ to gain retail and two floors of accommodation with frontage to both the market and the main street: “For Duke Street we felt something special was needed so we ordered the very best equipment from Italy, investing around £50,000 for fittings and development costs to get the doors open for April 2022. But now customers have to be told they cannot sit outside.”

A Tavistock Town Council spokesman said: “The council is not able to comment on legal proceedings and related matters.  It manages its properties in accordance with the leases that have been agreed with tenants.”