New law and children in pubs

I continue to receive a number of enquiries about the new law on children, which I touched upon last week. This is another aspect of the change which not surprisingly causes confusion, so here goes:

Currently, under the terms of the Licensing Act 1964, children under 14 are not permitted to remain in the bar of licensed premises, although they may pass through to reach somewhere else. In order to cater for families in the bar, a children's certificate will be required. If you already have a children's certificate, you should enclose it with your application for conversion, so that the licensing authority knows that children are allowed in your bar. You will then receive the same exemption as you have now, if all you do is a straight conversion and do not apply for a variation.

For those who do not have a children's certificate, it will be an "embedded condition" of the licence that children under 14 are not allowed in the areas of your pub exclusively or mainly used for the sale and consumption of alcohol. This is not, however, a condition of the new-style premises licence, which only prohibits the presence of unaccompanied children under 16 but places no restriction on families in the bar together.

The problem is that "grandfather rights" means that you get what you have now ­ no more and no less. If you want to change any of the rules, then you have to apply for a variation, which means filling in Part B and advertising the change or changes ­ and paying an extra fee.

So if you do not have a children's certificate and want to remove the restriction on children in the bar, it seems you will have to apply for the embedded condition to be removed. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be anywhere specifically for this to be done on the form which the DCMS has published. The only box available is a general one at the beginning of Part B, but there are no tick-boxes covering the presence of children in the bar.

The paradox is that anyone applying for a new premises licence will not even have to mention the position of children, as the 2003 Act will take effect and the old law will not be relevant. But it seems that grandfather rights is something of a mixed blessing here which you will have to work out with your local licensing officer.