A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Public debate is to be broadly welcomed, I sincerely hope I'm not dividing opinion by saying that. However, when the mass media get hold of a topic that you have some awareness of it's very frustrating to see the most basic of facts get mangled. This was the case in 2005 when the Daily Mail lead the charge against '24-hour drinking'. In many of the stories printed (and the Daily Wail wasn't alone in this) the basic facts were plain wrong, which meant that the public at large was ill-informed on a subject of some importance.

I haven't commented on the recent flare up of angst over underage drinking because generally I'd like to use this blog to highlight things that are important from a licensing authority/solicitor/practitioner's point of view. I've been provoked into sniping at one particular addition to the debate having had the misfortune to stumble across this on the letters page of one of today's eminent Sunday newspapers:

Sir - Police have the power to control drunkenness in the streets.

The terms of a premise's licence are that a licensee should not serve anyone who is drunk. If the police see a landlord serving a customer who has consumed too much alcohol, they can oppose the renewal of his licence.This would tighten up immoderate consumption of drink.

(Name withheld to spare the writer's blushes when Googling his own name)

Hopefully if you're one of the few people in the country to whom this blog is aimed then the mistakes and wrong-thinking will jump off the page at you.

• 'Should' - ok, woolly as it is I'll let that go.
• 'Renewal' though? That's going to be a long wait.
• 'Terms of a premise's licence'? Surely that'd be a duplication of pre-existing legislation?
• The assumption that anyone drunk in the street has been in a pub/bar? I can name some who'd take vigorous issue with that.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs but surely if someone wants to spout forth on a topic, telling the police how to do their job in such a high-minded manner you should know what you're talking about? I don't want to limit debate to the few specialists in a given area but unless lay people educate themselves to the issues they're only going to get slapped down by anyone who does have an inkling of what they're talking about. For such a short letter it really does show a horrendous lack of knowledge of the matter - and it gets printed!

Best of all though, is the idea that the police have the manpower to spend their evenings rounding up each one of these drunk people (who, lest we forget are in the streets at this point) and finding out where they might have been served alcohol at a point when they were already intoxicated - surely a nigh-unpoliceable offence if ever there was one. Yes, I'd like a front-row seat to that show, please.


Technorati Tags: licensing, licensing act 2003, bad reporting, media, premises licence

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Premises licences at risk in Avon & Somerset

Police in Avon & Somerset have issued an exasperated-sounding warning to premises licence holders in the area. This follows the disappointing results of a round of test purchases to catch those selling alcohol to under 18's.

The figures don't make for pretty reading:

• Of 36 on-licensed premises (excuse the sloppy terminology - you know what I mean) 67% failed.
• Of 38 off-licences checked 39% failed the test.

Which is funny, because I keep hearing a lot of blame being thrown in the direction of the off-trade for this sort of thing. Childish 'on' vs 'off' name-calling is one of my little bugbears - it's blinkered thinking of the worst kind. The point is that there seem to be a significant number of licensed premises in the Somerset & Avon area that need to clean their acts up, especially with the police being given more and more enforcement powers under recent legislation.

Superintendant Gary Davies summed up the police's position on this saying "With continually disappointing results like these we are going to have to consider revoking the licenses of certain premises. I urge licensees to respond to our plea to improve standards. We want to work with the licensing trade but with these results tougher enforcement is becoming the only option."

Letters have gone out to all licensed premises in the area to inform everyone of the police's hardening attitude.

Full story on the Avon & Somerset Constabulary website - here.

Photo by Andy Welsh via Flickr.


Technorati Tags: premises licence, avon and somerset, police, licensing, alcohol, entertainment, enforcement, test purchase, under-age drinking

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Licensing minister Gerry Sutcliffe speaks

The Morning Advertiser has an interview with our erstwhile licensing minister, the full text of which is here. The most interesting points for me are:

1. A DCMS response to the Independent Licensing Fees Review Panel's report will be out at the end of the summer with any proposals to be consulted on. That report came out back in January - expect this one to drag...
2. There's an amusing claim that the Act will reduce bureaucracy. Presumably the proposals mentioned above will be pretty far-reaching.
3. It sounds like application forms and advertising requirements will be simplified.
4. A commitment to looking for a new process for 'minor variations'.
5. No guarantees about a universal annual fee date but they are assessing the implications. This may well be consulted on with the fee level proposals.
6. A DCMS evaluation of the Licensing Act is expected at the end of the year. Expect this one to drag...

There are questions on gambling in pubs, and a few questions on MA hobby horses (the smoking ban and blaming the off-trade for everything) that are batted aside. It looks like it was a written interview so although there was no scope for following up any questions at least the answers seem to be considered.



Technorati Tags: gerry sutcliffe, licensing, interview, licensing minister, morning advertiser, licence fees, minor variations, consultation

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Cansei de Ser Sexy - Alcohol

Ok, something a little more light-hearted and just about on-topic (but only barely). If you've not discovered the charming Cansei de Ser Sexy yet then here's a nudge in their direction with the video for their latest single 'Alcohol'. See? Alcohol and entertainment - I told you it was (just about) on-topic.

It's not on-message as far as responsible drinking goes but it does feature dancing bunnies and you can't have everything. If you get the chance to see CSS live then I heartily recommend it because they're a heck of a lot of fun. For more info about them follow this link to their myspace.

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Free alcohol gets the chop

Telling clients they can't do what they'd like to do isn't fun (usually) but it's a very necessary part of being an advisor/solicitor/whatever in the world of licensing. Keeping clients on the right side of the tracks is what we're there for.

Sometimes it's difficult though. A generally accepted criticism of the Licensing Act 2003 is the disproportionate burden it places on businesses (especially small ones) where the provision of licensable activities is a minor part of the overall operation. A particular example of this came to my attention recently.

I was contacted by a hairdresser who, in addition to offering complimentary tea, coffee and soft drinks, also offered a glass of wine to customers. At most this amounted to a few glasses a month but with some hair treatments taking time to complete she believed it was important for her customers to feel well looked after and pampered.

There had been a misunderstanding though, and I'm sure that she was not alone in this. As far as she was concerned the alcohol was given away for free, so no licence was required. However, with customers paying for the service they receive at the salon, the law takes a different view - the cases of DPP v McVitie and Doak v Bedford (citations on request) established that principle long ago. The test that has evolved is this - 'would any person walking in off the street and not paying for a service be entitled to a free drink?'. The answer here would surely be no.

So the advice has to be either apply for a licence or stop giving away alcohol and I suspect that most salons would be forced choose the latter, to the sole detriment of their customers. I say forced because the cost of applying for a premises licence (council fee, advert, plans, any advisors' fees) as well as the cost of at least one personal licence is unlikely to be covered by any extra business from the wine offer.

That said, there are those for whom having an alcohol licence will make good business sense. Jacks of London make a bar an integral part of their branches and the salons at the highest end, some of which serve food as well, will see an alcohol licence as necessary for offering the highest levels of customer service.

It's tough to see who benefits from this approach though. How many of the country's hairdressers are likely to become centres for crime, disorder, public nuisance and be of potential harm to the public and, in particular, children by giving away the odd glass of wine? The salons' impact on the licensing objectives is surely negligible at most.

Hair and beauty salons aren't the only sorts of business that are affected in this way, just the most recent example to come to my attention. The problem was flagged in the Better Regulation Task Force's report of April 2006 (PDF), let's hope some sense can be knocked into the Act at some point.

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News roundup

There are a couple of interesting items on the Publican and Morning Advertiser websites at the moment.

The Publican covers a report from the Department of Health that "nearly all businesses are complying with the (smoking) ban". 97% of premises inspected in the first couple of weeks of the ban were properly smoke-free. Although there was criticism of the gov.t's advertising of the ban prior to 1 July the message, at least as far as the start date was concerned, seems to have got across.

I've not taken a look at the report myself but would suspect (from my general wanderings) that the percentage of premises showing the correct signage is less impressive. That seemed to be a common problem when Eleanor Goodman from The Publican spent a day with a smokefree officer (is that really their title?) inspecting premises in Herne Bay and Canterbury.

Meanwhile, over at the Morning Advertiser there's news of what sounds like rather over-zealous policing by the Merseyside Police. There's a few interesting aspects to the story involving the closure of the New Market in Newton-le-Willows in particular:

1. Carrying out sting operations on Friday evenings when the relevant Council department is closed until the following Monday;
2. Use of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 to order closure of the premises - "a complete abuse of the legal powers under the 2001 Act" as Peter Coulson points out; and
3. Whether the premises had in fact failed to "adopt and adhere to" the Challenge 21 age-check policy.

To expand on that last point, serving alcohol to an under-18 is an offence under the Licensing Act, fair enough. However, Challenge 21 policies are less absolute and in fact have a very subjective basis so it must be very hard to prove that one is not being adhered to - particularly if you're going to use it as the basis to close premises. Essentially the policy is only as good as the barstaff's perception - if the staff in this case said they thought the customer looked over 21 then there's no problem as far as adherence to a licence condition imposing the policy is concerned. I'm sure training could help but really, what does the average 21 year old look like?

Of course there may be other factors here that we're not aware of. As is often the case there is an element of confusion - in this case the police have denied saying that the premises must close over the whole weekend.

As far as the Challenge 21 policy is concerned, if it has been implemented there should be signage, training records and a refusals book to back this up. The latter two are the sorts of records often considered to be a pain to keep up but they are absolutely invaluable when they're needed - neglecting them is rarely a mistake made twice.

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