The future of Giancarlo’s Italian restaurant in Tranent looks uncertain as the business has had its premises licence revoked by East Lothian Council after failing to pay its annual fees.

The restaurant has been closed since May despite owner Giancarlo Pacitti telling the Courier that month that it was only shutting for a fortnight for a family holiday.

In a further conversation in July, Mr Pacitti told us he did not wish to make the reasons for closure public but that he remained hopeful of opening again “in the next couple of months”.

However, when East Lothian Council’s licensing board staff wrote to Mr Pacitti on July 31 asking for a payment of an annual premises fee, the board received no response.

Additional letters were sent to Mr Pacitti in October and November reminding him about the payment, but no fee has yet been paid.

At a meeting of the licensing board on Thursday, Carlo Grilli, clerk to the licensing board, told the meeting that it had been discovered that the company had since been dissolved.

Mr Grilli recommended that the licence be revoked under Licensing Scotland Act (2005) section 28 (1)(B) which states that a premises licence ceases when the trading company involved is dissolved.

Councillor Lachlan Bruce said: “In the context of this application, our policy is quite clear that the board takes the view that if any licence holder becomes dissolved or insolvent, the licence will no longer exist unless an application for it to be transferred has been made within 28 days.

“We are well over the 28 days now so I see no other way other than for this licence to be revoked.”

Councillors voted unanimously to revoke the licence.

Alistair Macdonald, who represented the business when it obtained the licence, told the meeting that he had other clients interested in taking over the premises.

Mr Macdonald had asked if it would be possible to transfer the licence to another owner, but this proposal was rejected by councillors as no application for a transfer had been made.