A Sheerness bar will be forced to close for two weeks after a teenager was served alcohol and later rushed to hospital.

Police asked Swale council to investigate The Ivy, off Sheerness High Street, because a 16-year-old girl was found to be drunk and causing a disturbance.

Swale council's licensing officer, Mohammad Bauluck, said the youngster had "spent an afternoon being served alcohol and drinking at The Ivy".

The council's licensing sub-committee has since decided the premises licence should be suspended for 14 days from mid-September.

It is the third Sheppey venue that has been told to shut temporarily, after police intervened at the Talk of the Town in April and Merlins in July.

Three further conditions were also imposed on The Ivy: There must be at least one personal licence holder on the premises at all times when alcohol is being sold, a Challenge 25 policy must be in place, and there must be an incident register and refusal book.

Speaking about the decision, The Ivy owner Colin Barrett said: "I totally accept the conditions and our punishment, and we will obviously adhere to them.

"I’m very happy we haven’t lost our business over this.

“Hopefully we can come back stronger and better than before.”

The 54-year-old from Minster, who has owned the bar for 12 years, said he would also retrain all six staff members to prevent it happening again.

He said: “In the 14 days that we are going to be closed, we are going to retrain all staff and do some refurbishment.

"I’m also going to put all members through a course to become a designated premises supervisor by Christmas.

“Swale council is absolutely right in their decision, the police were right to throw the book at us, but we defended ourselves successfully and I am grateful to the council for giving us a second chance.

“It’s a lesson learned.”

He said that staff had believed the girl was old enough to drink but had not checked her ID thoroughly enough.

“What we need to do in future is to take the ID from the customer, look at it, show it to our CCTV camera behind the bar and, if we’re still unsure, refuse service and ask them to leave.

"This will then be documented in the refusals book.”

When it reopens, The Ivy will be a strictly over-18s venue. The refurbishment will include a new lounge area.

“We want to make it a bit more desirable for the more mature generation of drinkers,” said Mr Barrett.