CITY centre pub The Company Inn is looking to alter its licence to avoid paying the controversial late night levy.
The Wetherspoons pub wants to stop serving alcohol at 12am to avoid being hit with an annual charge of £2,730.
The Late Night Levy will see bars and clubs which open after midnight help contribute towards the cost of night-time policing in the city – estimated to be nearly £1.5 million a year.
The pub company said it didn't want to comment on the case before councillors looked at the plans on Thursday.
The city council has said it expected 20 per cent of all premises in the city to alter their licences to avoid paying the charge which comes into force in November. The authority has already received 80 applications to vary licences to avoid the charge.
The levy will see pubs charged up to £4,440 with the money split between the city council and Nottinghamshire Police.
The council has said the money will be used to fund two community protection officers who will work in the city centre.
Members of the Nottingham Business Improvement District lobbied the council to be exempt from the charge and this was granted – but the Company Inn sits outside the Nottingham BID area.
The authority consulted on the plans and 74 per cent of businesses and individuals said they disagreed with the plans.
But a city council spokesman said the consultation also looked at "a range of issues such as how and when it should be applied" – and this feedback led to the exemption for the BID.
But some businesses are still upset about the levy.
Alan Williams, head of trading services at Nottingham Trent University Students' Union, said: "The money the council will get from this will pay for two more community protection officers and our two campuses will put in more than £4,000 a year each, but will they ever need to come here or patrol here?
"It might be that we pay the cost and see none of the benefit."
Director of Nottingham's Crime and Drugs Partnership, Peter Moyes, said: "The number of people using the city during that time is quite limited and the number of businesses that are open during that time is also quite limited.
"We feel that the businesses that benefit from that extra service should be paying for it.
"There's nine businesses that would pay £12.16 per night, that's less than a cost of a bottle of wine. We think the bulk of the businesses would be paying either £2.10 or £3.44 a night – 27 businesses would probably pay £2.10 per night and 34 businesses would pay £3.44 a night.
"We are not asking the earth or for something that is beyond their means to pay."
Council leader Jon Collins, said: "Nottingham is a very popular night-time destination and we want to make sure that people continue to choose to come here and are able to enjoy a safe night out when they do.
"We never expected the Levy to be popular in the licensed trade – even though it is a modest fee which no viable business will struggle to meet."
