County Down (Ireland) - The proposal has been before a court for years . Now the final verdict has finally been reached: the Lidl supermarket chain is allowed to build its own pub in one of its Irish stores!

As the British newspaper"Mirror" reports, Lidl was granted planning permission for its own pub back in 2020.

The problem, however, was that the number of bars within a locality in Ireland is regulated by law. In other words, in order to open the Lidl pub, another pub owner had to give up their bar license. Furthermore, Philip Russell Ltd - a local liquor retailer - opposed the billion-dollar group's plan.

It raised concerns as the supermarket chain could not demonstrate that its new premises would have "sufficient licensed premises" under the Licensing (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. This regulation determines which premises are allowed to serve alcoholic beverages - according to this, a supermarket is not (yet) one of them.

However, the responsible judges quickly dismissed this objection. They said: "The fact that it is a novel application is not a reason to reject it."

With this statement from the court, Lidl now officially has permission to start building its own pub. According to a statement from the court, the company is said to have budgeted a whopping £140,000 (equivalent to around €167,440) for the conversion and construction of the pub. Lidl has not yet confirmed when construction of the new pub will begin or when the scheduled opening will take place.

However, the latest court ruling has at least laid the foundations for the crazy supermarket-pub combo.