The pub company Antic has won a licence to open a new venue in the old Kinara building in Plumstead – but with tight restrictions on how it can operate.

Plumble can serve alcohol from 10am to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and 10am to 11pm on other days of the week.

But Greenwich Council has told Antic that the venue must operate as a “bar-restaurant” between 6pm and 10.30pm, with a maximum of 40 non-diners allowed at these times.

Antic, which formerly ran the Woolwich Equitable and recently relaunched the Job Centre in Deptford as Jam Circus, had originally applied for later hours – until 1am at weekends and midnight during the week. It downgraded its application after negotiations with the council.

But this did not satisfy police, who objected to a licence for the bar, in an old council office on Plumstead High Street. The Met said wanted to drinks sales to be restricted to diners only.

The decision followed a licensing hearing on Wednesday.

Sam Bobb, the police’s licensing officer, said that while the venue had been described as a “restaurant-bar” by Antic, it would be “likely to lead to alcohol-fuelled crime within the venue and its environs”. The building’s location in a cumulative impact zone – an area with lots of licences – was also a factor in the police’s objection.

Four objections were received from neighbours, including from a couple next door who said in an email to the council: “We’d never be able to relax in our own home at night.”

Mark O’Brien O’Reilly, a lawyer representing the Metropolitan Police, said: “When you have a large concentration of such premises, the addition of further premises further run a risk of more crime and disorder, and also places greater demand on the resources of the police and also other emergency services, which is what the Metropolitan Police is keen to avoid.

“We are concerned as to whether that this premises will predominantly be a wet led operation. And what I mean by that is, rather than being a restaurant, it’ll be a premises where people will be coming to drink alcohol only. And obviously the problems that come with data are well known to the committee.”

David Gardner, the chair of the committee, suggested that the Met’s call for the bar to only serve diners “might be a bit over the top”.

“Can’t a public house where it’s well managed and very much a community-pub improve that sense of, of community improve people’s wellbeing?” he asked. “Is it presenting too much of a barrier if people just want to go in and have a drink and maybe a packet of crisps?”

O’Brien O’Reilly said: “Of course, it is along a high street, but there are is already a large number of premises along there, which have, as I understand, attracted complaints.”

Anthony Thomas, from Antic, said the company took its licences “incredibly seriously” and was a “responsible operator”.

Plumble would be run along the lines of Antic’s Coopers bar at Crystal Palace, he said. “It opens in the morning, it’s very much brunch, it’s tea, it’s coffee, it then goes through lunch for home workers, and then it goes through then to a bar-restaurant.

“The idea of sitting down and having a meal doesn’t attract everyone. We do want to make sure that this is an engaging community led operation, one that is very much open to all.”

Thomas said that Antic had suggested a limit of 60 non-diners; however, this was cut to 40 when the decision was published on Friday afternoon.

• A new restaurant in the old Spread Eagle in Greenwich was also approved after the same meeting. Calabash had to settle for opening hours of 8am to midnight after objections to its original plans to open to 3am. The 300-year-old Spread Eagle on Stockwell Street closed suddenly a decade ago and its replacement, Al Panchino, closed in 2018.