Immigration Enforcement and the police both want Sky Blue's licence revoked on 24 September. Its operating company folded owing the Home Office £90,000.

Two public bodies have asked City of York Council to take the premises licence away from a Chinese restaurant and karaoke bar on Barbican Road.

The case against Sky Blue, at 16 Barbican Road in Fishergate, is listed for a licensing sub-committee at West Offices at 10am on Thursday 24 September (City of York Council agenda, 24 September 2026). Home Office Immigration Enforcement applied for the review on 29 July and asked for the licence to be revoked (application for review). North Yorkshire Police made a representation on 20 August asking for the same thing.

Councillors Melly, Baxter and Nicholls will hear the case. They can revoke the licence, suspend it, strip conditions on to it, or leave it alone.

Two visits in 2025, one worker arrested each time

The review turns on two enforcement visits, both of which the officers entered using powers under section 179 of the Licensing Act 2003 (review pack).

  • 17 July 2025, 5.48pm. One man was arrested in the kitchen. Officers record that he had entered on a student visa valid from September 2009 to February 2011, that every later application had been refused, and that he was in breach of immigration bail conditions. A staff rota shown to him recorded him working four days a week over the previous month.
  • 10 December 2025, 5.48pm. A second man was arrested. Home Office checks showed a visit visa valid from February 2017 to August 2017 and no application since. The pack records that he was paid £30 to £40 a shift, was given accommodation nearby free of charge, and had never held the right to work in the UK. He left the country on 11 January 2026 under the Voluntary Return Scheme.

Both men told officers that nobody had asked them for documents before they started work. Immigration Enforcement argues that this gave the business “an unfair commercial advantage over compliant businesses”.

The address has been through this twice before

The licence at 16 Barbican Road has been revoked twice in six years. The council’s own history of the premises reads as follows (officer report, paragraph 10):

  • 2014 to 2019: four enforcement visits while the address traded as The Regency Chinese Restaurant, on 7 June 2014, 21 May 2015, 8 September 2017 and 6 September 2019. Twelve people were arrested for immigration offences across those four visits.
  • 8 June 2020: the sub-committee revoked The Regency’s licence. An appeal was dismissed on 8 December 2020.
  • 29 April 2021: a new licence, CYC-068154, was granted under the name Sky Blue.
  • 17 November 2022: that licence was revoked too, after a review brought by North Yorkshire Police over licence condition breaches and a spiking allegation. It was reinstated on 11 October 2023 by a consent order on appeal.
  • 10 December 2025: North Yorkshire Police served a closure notice under section 19 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001.

Timeline of enforcement at 16 Barbican Road, York: 12 arrests across four visits between 2014 and 2019 as The Regency, licence revoked June 2020, new licence April 2021, revoked November 2022 and reinstated October 2023, one arrest at each of two visits in July and December 2025, hearing 24 September 2026

Fourteen people have been arrested for immigration offences at the address across six visits since 2014, on the council’s and the Home Office’s own figures.

The licence already carried right-to-work conditions

The 2021 licence was granted with conditions written specifically to prevent this. North Yorkshire Police’s force licensing manager sets them out in a representation published as an agenda supplement on Friday (North Yorkshire Police additional information). They require the licence holder to:

  • run a full HR system storing the relevant documents for every member of staff
  • keep those documents for 24 months after employment ends and produce them to police, immigration or licensing officers on request
  • use an HR provider to carry out Home Office right-to-work checks and verify identity documents
  • let nobody start work without satisfactory proof of identity and right to work

On both visits, the police say, the HR system could produce no employment records and no right-to-work documents for the man who had just been arrested. A section 19 closure notice was served on each occasion, in July and again in December.

The police also record a concern about who is actually running the premises. On both visits the man who held the licence when the address traded as The Regency was present, and staff described him to officers as the person in charge. He gave immigration officers a false name in July, the representation says, and officers identified him from his driving licence. He told officers in December that he neither owned nor controlled the business.

The company behind the restaurant went into liquidation on 1 September

Since the council approved its report on 28 August, the business has changed shape. Sky Blue York Ltd, the company that traded the restaurant, entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 1 September 2026 (Companies House, company 13389214). Two liquidators were appointed the same day, and the registered office moved from York to Chorley in Lancashire on 4 September.

The statement of affairs filed at Companies House, signed on 20 August, values the company at £3,600 in cash and nothing else. It lists four unsecured creditors owed £102,412 between them:

Creditor Owed
Home Office £90,000
Regency Online Shopping Ltd, Leeds £10,000
HM Revenue and Customs £1,500
Companies House £912

The estimated deficiency is £98,813.

Immigration Enforcement issued Sky Blue York Ltd with a £40,000 civil penalty on 14 October 2025 and a further £45,000 on 22 January 2026. Both were maintained after the company objected, the pack records an appeal struck out on 24 March 2026, and both debts were referred to a collection agency. The review pack, written before the liquidation, records them as unpaid. The statement of affairs does not itemise what the £90,000 owed to the Home Office is made up of.

The liquidation does not end the licence. A premises licence is held by a named person, not by the trading company, and it is that person’s licence the sub-committee will rule on.

What the sub-committee can do

Under section 52(4) of the Licensing Act 2003 the panel has six options:

  1. modify the conditions of the licence
  2. exclude a licensable activity from it
  3. remove the designated premises supervisor
  4. suspend the licence for up to three months
  5. revoke the licence
  6. take no action

The licence currently allows alcohol sales, live and recorded music and dance from 10am to 3.30am every day, late night refreshment from 11pm to 3.30am, and opening until 4am.

Whatever is decided does not take effect straight away. The decision is on hold until the period for appealing to the magistrates’ court has passed, or until any appeal is finished. That is how the 2022 revocation came to be undone: the licence was reinstated by consent almost eleven months later.

The kitchen also holds a one-star hygiene rating

Separately from the licensing case, Sky Blue Chinese Restaurant was rated 1 out of 5 for food hygiene when City of York Council inspected on 16 April 2026 (Food Standards Agency). The register records “improvement necessary” for hygienic food handling and for the cleanliness and condition of the building, and “major improvement necessary” for management of food safety. A rating can be re-inspected on request and businesses have a right of reply on the FSA register.

What it means for you

  • If you have a booking there: nothing changes on 24 September itself. Any step the sub-committee takes is suspended until the appeal window closes, so the licence stays in force in the meantime.
  • If you want to watch the hearing: it is public, at West Offices, Station Rise, YO1 6GA, from 10am on Thursday 24 September. The panel can ask press and public to leave while it makes its decision at the end. Our parking guide covers the Station Rise and Marygate car parks nearby.
  • If you employ staff in York: the right-to-work check is free and takes minutes, and doing it before employment starts is what gives an employer a statutory excuse against a penalty. The guidance is on GOV.UK.
  • If you are checking somewhere before you eat: every rated York business is on the FSA register, and our own York business directory lists what is trading in each postcode. More council decisions are in our York planning news.

Sources