The injustice at Just-Ice, Derby, means that shop owner Gavin Murray faces a cool £1,000 licence fee in order to keep serving the favourite flavour
AN ice cream parlour has been ordered to stop serving its popular rum and raisin flavour - because the shop doesn't have an alcohol licence.
Just-Ice in Derby fell foul of licensing rules because the ice cream contains 0.5 per cent alcohol, which councillors say is enough to warrant a freeze on its sale.
Gavin Murray, 47, who owns the shop with his wife Sally, gave local reporters the scoop when he realised he would have to fork out £1,000 to get a licence to keep selling their rum and raisin ice cream.
He told the : "I understand the council's comments, they just have to go by the law and we can't really argue with that.
"We have got to stick to that, alcohol is a dangerous substance, so we want to respect and honour that.
"But I think you would have to eat a lot of it to be affected by the booze - you probably would be sick before you felt the effects of the alcohol."
The family business, located inside Derby's Market Hall, is now looking at a way of saving the flavour by changing its production process to burn off the booze in the rum.
Gavin said: "Rum and raisin is an old classic and has always been there. They are two flavours that go together really well and the people of Derby definitely love it, we get people asking for it at least once a week.
"Our first step would be to run a trial on putting our rum in at the start of pasteurisation process and hopefully that will burn off the alcohol content, but leave that delicious real-rum flavour.
"Once we have done our trial, we will send it off to the lab for testing and hopefully we can get rum and raisin back for the Derby public who love it so much."
Derby City Council has said that Just-Ice, which opened four months ago, must be held to the same licensing laws as everyone else.
Councillor Mick Barker, lead member of Derby City Council for licensing, said: “This particular ice cream recipe contains more that 0.5 per cent alcohol, meaning it’s classed as alcoholic under the Licensing Act, and a licence is needed.
“Rum and raisin is a classic! If Just-Ice applies for a licence they will be able to sell this flavour, no problem.”
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