Whyte & Mackay in £1m footy deal

Whyte & Mackay, the Maxxium UK-owned whisky, is involved in a £1m sponsorship of Scottish Premier League football club Hibernian. The five-year deal includes Whyte & Mackay shirt sponsorship for the Edinburgh club from the start of the 2004/2005 season. Hibernian will also re-name a section of their Easter Road ground, the Whyte & Mackay stand. Buy now, warns planning expert Pub and bar operators have been urged to purchase new sites before the introduction of stringent planning laws later this year. Jenny Bean, planning director at property consultancy GL Hearn, warned that changes to the Use Classes Order will make life difficult for leisure operators. "Takeaway, bar and pub operators would be wise to acquire properties with A3 consent and implement the consent now prior to the implementation of the new Use Classes Order," she said. Wizard Inns tests wine bottle seals Wizard Inns is to put bottle seals to the test by comparing customer reaction to wine from Stelvin and traditional corked bottles in a three-month trial. From March, customers ordering Caliterra wines from Chile at any of the company's 60 pubs and bars will be poured a glass from a Stelvin sealed bottle. This will switch to cork-closed wines in April before going back to Stelvin in May. Following feedback, Wizard will decide on the best wine-sealing method. Death of devoted fundraiser Leonie Rickard, a lifetime fundraiser for the Society of Licensed Victuallers, has died aged 83 whilst working at the Lamb Inn in Andover. Rickard became a member of the SLV National Fundraising Committee in 1997 after working with her regional SLV committee. She raised the largest amount of foreign coins from her customers for the SLV's Trash the Cash fundraising event. Rickard's funeral will be on 10 March at St Mary's Church, Andover, at 2.30pm. Drink-habit risk for female executives High-flying female workers are more at risk of alcoholism than their male colleagues, according to a report by University College London. A survey of 8,000 Government employees showed 14% of female executives were likely to be problem drinkers compared to 10% of men in similar positions.